A Search for New Mesoporous Carbon Solids with Cubic Ordered Porosity

Abstract

A three-dimensional material comprised exclusively of carbon whose underlying structure lies on a triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) is a member of the class of hypothetical carbon allotropes known as schwarzites. Such materials are highly sought-after due to their fundamental significance (the last remaining unknown crystalline allotrope of sp2-hybridized carbon) and likely interesting properties (e.g., ballistic conduction at room temperature). Other properties include a large pore volume and high surface area for gas and ion adsorption, making them a class of candidate materials for many applications such as supercapacitor electrodes and gas storage. A true schwarzite has never been synthesized, despite their predicted low energies of formation compared to fullerenes.This research focuses on the synthesis of an interpenetrating schwarzite-like material. A hard-templating strategy has been designed to achieve this through the synthesis of a free-standing graphene foam material whose structure lies on a cubic TPMS. The specific material of interest herein requires an ordered mesoporous silicate template that carries the Ia-3d space group with an optimal pore to wall ratio. Pore and wall structure as well as composition for these materials can be optimized by changing the hydrothermal synthesis temperature, the addition of different precursors, and by varying the cationic and neutral structure-directing agents. We present our recent progress in this effort and also propose future work to achieve optimal templates for schwarzite-like materials synthesis. Figure 1