Synthesis of ordered mesoporous carbons with tunable pore size by varying carbon precursors via soft-template method

Abstract

Ordered mesoporous carbons (OMCs) with tunable pore size in the range of 3.6–6.2nm were prepared using the mixture of phenol, resorcinol and phloroglucinol as carbon precursor and triblock copolymer F127 as template via self-assembly method. The OMCs had ordered 2-D hexagonal mesostructure with high specific surface areas (up to 1100m2/g) and pore volume (up to 0.84cm3/g). Nitrogen sorption results demonstrated that the pore size of OMCs can be tuned by varying the composition of carbon precursors and the mass ratio of carbon precursor-to-F127. Systematic research revealed that increasing amount of resorcinol and phloroglucinol in carbon precursors resulted in carbons with larger pore size but less ordered mesostructure. Compared with resorcinol, phloroglucinol facilitated a larger mesopore, while led to a worse mesostructure.