Preparation of Monolithic Transparent Mesoporous Silica and Mesoporous Onion-Like Carbon

Abstract

Large-sized, crack-free silica monoliths have been fabricated by a fast and convenient way via EISA method using P123 as soft template and 1-hexadecyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide (［C16mim］Br) as additive. The hydrogen bonds formed between ILs and the silano groups of silica gel play crucial roles in the form of the bulk, transparent silica monolith. The mesoporous structure onion-like carbon monoliths were prepared with the transparent silica monolith as template via the nanocasting technique. The mesoporous silica and carbon monoliths have been characterized by the XRD, HRTEM, N2sorption and elemental analysis. The results reveal that pore diameter of the mesoporous carbon about 3.47nm, and the specific surface area of carbon with a nitrogen content of 4.2%, can be tuned from 408.2-629.0m2/g. HRTEM shows that this carbon material with nanoonions structure.