Designing Functional Metal/Doped-Carbon Materials via Sol-Gel Method and their Applications in Catalysis Field

Metal/doped-carbon materials have useful catalytic performances in hydrogenation reduction reaction, advanced oxidation reaction, and water splitting reactions. Sol-gel method is traditionally conducted to obtain oxide materials and this method has been used to prepare metal/doped-carbon materials in recent decades by heating precursors in inert or reducing atmosphere. Herein, the recent advances in the sol-gel designing and application of metal/doped-carbon materials, including the designing of sol system via appropriate selection of functional organic ligands, principles for formation of metal/doped-carbon materials, catalytic performances of the metal/doped-carbon materials toward hydrogenation reduction reaction, advanced oxidation reaction, and reducing of Cr(VI) reactions, are discussed. It is shown that the formation of metallic phase in the metal/doped-carbon material is connected with the standard electrode potential (SEP) of metal oxide, which is different to the conventional SEP of metallic ions. The kinds of metal and alloy in the metal(alloy)/doped-carbon material can be predicted by the SEP of the corresponding metal oxide. This review will help to understand the designing principle and catalytic performance of metal/doped-carbon materials.