Room-temperature rapid synthesis of metal-free doped carbon materials

•A general strategy of fabricating heteroatom doped carbon materials was developed.•The fabrication procedures could be fulfilled within 5 min at room temperatures.•Major byproducts was KCl and H2O, which could be eco-friendly disposed.•N, S, or P-doped carbon materials were investigated as demonstrations.

Heteroatom doped carbon materials (DCM) have gained tremendous attention due to their highly promising applications as well as low costs, therefore, time-/cost-/operation-effective fabrication of doped carbon materials holds great meanings to both scientific and practical fields. Here in this study, metal-free DCM could be fabricated rapidly (<5 min) at room-temperature, which could engage the efficient incorporation of heteroatom during the dechlorination of polyvenyldichloride (PVDC) by strong alkaline (like KOH). Cases of N, S, or P-DCM were investigated as demonstrations, which proofed our strategy being capable of effectively incorporating in-situ dehalogenated carbon sites with any available hetero-elements. Meanwhile, major byproduct, as investigated, were KCl and water, which could be eco-friendly disposed. Since the in-situ dehalogenated carbon sites are very reactive, our strategy should be not limited to the fabrication of single or two heteroelements, and it should fit the synthesis of multiple heteroelement DCM for broad interests of DCM investigations and application explorations.

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