Biomass-Derived Graphene-like Carbon: Efficient Metal-Free Carbocatalysts for Epoxidation.

N-doped graphene-like layered carbon (NG) could be synthesized via a metal-free pyrolysis route from glucose, fructose, and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF), which are cheap and widely available biomass or biomass derivatives. A well-developed thin-layer structure with large lateral dimensions could be obtained when 5-HMF was used as the precursor. More importantly, the 5-HMF-derived NG gave superior performance in epoxidation reactions compared with the conventional carbon catalysts and the performance of 5-HMF derived NG was even similar to that of a cobalt catalyst. Characterizations by TEM and XPS accompanied by EPR analysis revealed that the enhanced catalytic properties for NG arise from its high activation ability for both alkenes and O2 , which are attributed to the graphitic layered structure and graphitic N species, respectively.