Electron microscopy and nitrogen adsorption studies of film-type carbon replicas with large pore volume synthesized by using colloidal silica and SBA-15 as templates

Mesoporous carbons synthesized by the film-type replication of colloidal silica and SBA-15 templates are studied by electron microscopy and nitrogen adsorption. This synthesis strategy involves the formation of thin carbon film on the pore walls of these templates using resorcinol-crotonaldehyde polymer as carbon precursor. For the silica templates consisting of 20-80 nm colloids this synthesis affords carbons with extremely large pore volumes (5-9 cm³/g) and uniform spherical pores reproducing the size of the colloids used.