Dimethyl carbonate (DMC) is a building block in wide chemical-related fields and the transesterification of ethylene carbonate (EC) and methanol/ethanol is a sustainable route for the synthesis of DMC. Herein, in order to explore efficient heterogeneous catalysts, niobium-containing carbon nitride materials were synthesized by a convenient one-pot calcination method. By reserving the main chemical functionalities of carbon nitride, the Nb-CN composites contained both acidic and basic properties, and Nb can be dispersed by carbon nitride. In the transesterification of EC with methanol, under the reaction temperature of 140 °C and reaction time of 4 h, the conversion of EC and the selectivity of DMC reached 53.8% and 100%, respectively, and the activity of the catalyst did not decrease significantly after several recycling runs. Furthermore, the Nb-CN could promote transesterification reactions of other cyclic carbonate and alcohols.
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