LAUSR

Oxidation of amines to imines under light irradiation has been widely studied in the field of heterogeneous catalysis. For the first time, we demonstrate a facile mixing calcination approach for the preparation of CeO2/g-C3N4-x as a heterojunction catalyst for the photo-oxidative coupling of benzylamine under the irradiation of a 300 W Xe arc lamp at 308 K with the air balloon. It was found that the rate constant of CeR/CN-66% was 3 times as high as that of pure CeO2 or g-C3N4. All kinds of structural characterizations suggested the formation of heterojunction between the CeO2 and g-C3N4, serving as a tunnel for the transfer of photoinduced charge, which may contribute to the improvement of photoactivity. Moreover, the Ce3+ ions and oxygen vacancy significantly promoted the adsorption and activation of substrate or molecular O2. Therefore, the efficient separation of the charges, the prolonged photoinduced electron lifetime, and the abundant defect structure (increased content of Ce3+ ions or the oxygen v...