Synthesis of Novel Mesoporous Carbons and Their Applications to Electrochemical Double-Layer Capacitors

Abstract

ABSTRACTWe have developed a new synthetic procedure to fabricate mesoporous carbons using mesoporous inorganic materials as templates. Mesoporous carbons with regular 3-dimensionally interconnected ∼ 2 nm pore arrays have been synthesized using aluminum substituted MCM-48 and HMS mesoporous silicas as templates. The polymerization of phenol and formaldehyde inside the nanopores of the mesoporous silica templates generated phenol-resin/luminosilicate nanocomposites. The carbonization followed by the removal of silicate templates generated mesooporous carbons with regular pore dimensions. The mesoporous carbons exhibited excellent performance for electrochemical double layer capacitors (EDLC). They revealed ideal rectangular shaped cyclovoltammograms up to the high scan rate of 20 mV/sec, which is important for the future applications.