Eco-friendly, green and sustainable endo-templated in-situ synthesis of MgO-incorporated carbon from sea salt: An efficient heterogeneous base catalyst

Abstract This paper reports an eco-friendly and sustainable approach for the in-situ synthesis of MgO-incorporated carbon (MgO@C) using sea salt and sucrose as the magnesium and carbon sources, respectively. Sea salt was used as an endo-template for the formation of microporosity in a carbon texture, resulting in the maximal surface area, 497 m 2 /g with the in-situ incorporation of MgO. The present methodology has the advantage of an acid/base-free approach with simple water washing for leaching of the template, which can be regenerated and reused after simple drying. The resulting MgO@C showed better performance as a heterogeneous base catalyst for the synthesis of chalcones. Among the synthesized MgO@C catalysts, the MgO@C obtained using sucrose/sea salt ratio of 1:4 with 28 wt% MgO loading resulted in higher catalytic activity, i.e., maximal conversion of acetophenone (95%) within 90 min, compared with another ratio.