Interpolation strategy for monodisperse hollow mesoporous carbon spheres in high performance supercapacitor

Abstract

Hollow mesoporous carbon spheres are of particular interest in disease diagnosis, heterogeneous catalysis, energy storage/conversion and drug/gene/protein storage or delivery due to their high dispersion, large surface area, tunable porosity and high permeability. Suitable and precisely controlled structure is important for efficient mass transport and provides necessary accommodation for guest species. Herein, hollow mesoporous carbon spheres with fluffy mesoporous shell and controlled monodispersed spherical morphology are synthesized via a facile interpolation strategy. A hollow structure can be created in solid 3-aminophenol/formaldehyde spheres after dissolution treatment with acetone basing on their compositional inhomogeneity. The dissolved dispersive 3-aminophenol/formaldehyde resin oligomer reassembles with silica oligomer and cetyltrimethyl-ammonium bromide forming silica-carbon composites and thereafter carbon shell. 3-aminophenol/formaldehyde swell under acetone treatment and allow interpolation of silica from outside to inside of 3-aminophenol/formaldehyde. The structural properties and morphology of hollow mesoporous carbon spheres can be easily controlled by adjusting the amount of silica precursor-tetraethoxysilane. The obtained hollow mesoporous carbon spheres exhibit uniform and highly dispersed spherical morphology and fluffy mesoporous shell and high surface area and present high performance in supercapacitor, exhibiting the potential as electrode materials.