Synthesis of mesoporous carbons of high surface area and porosity by using polymer blends as template

Abstract

In this paper, we provided a new method to generate the carbonizable polymer–silica nanocomposite in one step by using different polymer blends of phenol formaldehyde (PF) and silica-gelling polymer (i.e., Pluronic F127, PEO6000 or gelatin) as the template. The PF–silica gelling polymer–silica nanocomposite was obtained from fast silicification in a highly diluted silica solution at pH ≈ 5.0. Because the PF, one kind of carbon sources, was embedded in the as-synthesized nanocomposite, the mesoporous carbon was easily obtained from pyrolysis at 1,000°C and silica removal by diluted HF solution. The resulted mesoporous carbons possess a high surface area of 780–1,500 m2 g−1 and large pore size of 2.6–13.7 nm. In addition, the morphology of the mesoporous carbons can be tailored to nano-sized particles and hollow spheres by using different silica gelator–PF polymer blends. In practice, the electrically conducting mesoporous carbons of high surface area and large pore size can be considered as good material for preparing the supercapacitor. The mesoporous carbons exhibit electric capacity of 75–158 Fg−1 in 2.0 M H2SO4 electrolyte solution at scan rate of 1–50 mVs−1.