Anisotropic Self-Assembly of Asymmetric Mesoporous Hemispheres with Tunable Pore Structures at Liquid-Liquid Interfaces.

Abstract

Asymmetric materials have attracted tremendous interest because of their intriguing physicochemical properties and promising applications, but endowing them with precisely controlled morphologies and porous structures remains a formidable challenge. Herein, a facile micelle anisotropic self-assembly approach on a droplet surface is demonstrated to fabricate asymmetric carbon hemispheres with a jellyfish-like shape and radial multilocular mesostructure. This facile synthesis follows an interface-energy-mediated nucleation and growth mechanism, which allows easy control of the micellar self-assembly behaviors from isotropic to anisotropic modes. Furthermore, the micelle structure can also be systematically manipulated by selecting different amphiphilic triblock copolymers as a template, resulting in diverse novel asymmetric nanostructures, including eggshell, lotus, jellyfish, and mushroom-shaped architectures. The unique jellyfish-like hemispheres possess large open mesopores (∼14 nm), a high surface area (∼684 m2 g-1), abundant nitrogen dopants (∼6.3 wt %), a core-shell mesostructure and, as a result, manifest excellent sodium-storage performance in both half and full-cell configurations. Overall, our approach provides new insights and inspirations for exploring sophisticated asymmetric nanostructures for many potential applications.