Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Materials Today: Proceedings 7 (2019) 697–703 www.materialstoday.com/proceedings 2214-7853 © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Nanotech Malaysia 2018. Nanotech Malaysia 2018 Photocatalytic degradation of aromatic organic pollutants: bulk versus mesoporous carbon nitride Leny Yuliati a, * ,b,c , Shu Chin Lee d , Hendrik O. Lintang a,b,c a Ma Chung Research Center for Photosynthetic Pigments, Universitas Ma Chung, Villa Puncak Tidar N-01, Malang 65151, East Java, Indonesia b Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universitas Ma Chung, Villa Puncak Tidar N-01, Malang 65151, East Java, Indonesia c Centre for Sustainable Nanomaterials, Ibnu Sina Institute for Scientific and Industrial Research, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia d Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia Abstract Mesoporous carbon nitride (MCN) having larger specific surface area and more defects exhibited higher photocatalytic activity than the bulk one for degradation of aromatic organic pollutants under visible light. The different substituent groups resulted in the different degradation percentages. It was suggested that benzene derivatives with high structure stability or containing electron-withdrawing group (EWG) led to the deactivation of the aromatic ring. Although benzene ring reactivity was accelerated by the presence of electron-donating group (EDG), it was also affected by other factors such as the easiness to be adsorbed onto the photocatalyst and formation of no stable intermediates. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Nanotech Malaysia 2018. Keywords: carbon nitride; mesoporosity; defects; aromatic organic pollutants; electron-donating group; adsorption; intermediate 1. Introduction Benzene derivatives are aromatic organic pollutants that can be easily found in industrial wastewater [1,2]. Their high stabilities in water might contaminate groundwater and will lead to adverse impact on the ecosystem. Therefore, an efficient waste water management is highly important. Semiconductor photocatalysis has been proposed as a good approach for environmental remediation [3-5]. It is a potential technology to treat wastewater as it can degrade * Corresponding author. Tel.: +62-341-550171; fax: +62-341-550175. E-mail address: leny.yuliati@machung.ac.id