Mesoporous carbon materials synthesis

Recent reports describe the use of various porous carbon materials for protein adsorption. For example, Hyeon and coworkers summarized the recent development of porous carbon materials in their review [163], where the successful use of mesoporous carbons as adsorbents for bulky pollutants, as electrodes for supercapacitors and fuel cells, and as hosts for protein immobilization are described. Gogotsi and coworkers synthesized novel mesoporous carbon materials using ternary MAX-phase carbides that can be optimized for efficient adsorption of large inflammatory proteins [164]. The synthesized carbons possess tunable pore size with a large volume of slit-shaped mesopores. They demonstrated that not only micropores (0.4—2 nm) but also mesopores (2-50 nm) can be tuned in a controlled way by extraction of metals from carbides, providing a mechanism for the optimization of adsorption systems for selective adsorption of a large variety of biomolecules. Furthermore, Vinu and coworkers have successfully developed the synthesis of... 

Lately, a fascinating strategy has been successfully developed for the preparation of ordered mesoporous carbons. The synthesis procedure of these advanced carbons consists in the infiltration of an organic precursor into the pores of silica or aluminosilicate templates, followed by the subsequent pyrolysis of the precursor and dissolution of the template framework by HF [9—12]. In another process, carbon is directly introduced in the template by a CVD method [86]. The method gives a highly ordered and interconnected network of meso- and micropores [87], where the size of carbon mesopores is defined by the walls thickness of the pristine silica matrix. Such materials are very suitable for better understanding the relationships between the porous characteristics and the supercapacitors performance [88, 89]. 

Several reviews covering the synthesis, properties and applications of porous carbons, especially mesoporous carbon materials, can be found in the literature. In this chapter, we summarise the recent developments in the synthesis and characterisation of templated porous carbon materials. Particular attention is paid to the synthesis of structurally ordered porous carbon materials with narrow pore size distribution via both hard and soft template methods. We especially emphasise those so-called breakthroughs in the preparation of porous carbon materials. The chapter is divided into three sections according to the pore size of carbon materials we first consider the synthesis of microporous carbon materials using zeolites and clays as hard template, then summarise the preparation of mesoporous carbon materials via both hard template and self-assembly... 

It was observed that the furfuryl alcohol/TEOS ratio significantly affected the mesopore size of resulting carbon. Moriguchi et al. reported the direct synthesis of mesoporous carbon material by in situ polymerisation of divinylbenzene in the hydrophobic phase of a hexagonally arrayed micelle/silicate nanocomposite and its subsequent carbonisation and HE treatment. The resulting carbon material had poor structural ordering with only wormhole-like mesopores of 2 nm. The synthesis of mesoporous carbon via one-step vapour deposition polymerisation using... 

The morphology of ordered mesostructured carbons is another important factor with respect to their practical applications. Various macroscopic morphologies are required, for example, films (in sensor, separation and optical applications), uniformly sized spheres (in chromatography) or transparent monoliths. Using suitable synthesis strategies, it is possible to control the external shape of the templated mesoporous carbon materials to generate powders, films and membranes, spheres, hollow spheres, rods, fibres, nanowires, nanotubes and monoliths. 

Liang C, Dai S (2006) Synthesis of mesoporous carbon materials via enhanced hydrogenbonding interaction. J Am Chem Soc 128 5316-5317... 

Nowadays synthesis of mesoporous materials with zeolite character has been suggested to overcome the problems of week catalytic activity and poor hydrothermal stability of highly silicious materials. So different approaches for the synthesis of this new generation of bimodal porous materials have been described in the literature like dealumination [4] or desilication [5], use of various carbon forms as templates like carbon black, carbon aerosols, mesoporous carbon or carbon replicas [6] have been applied. These mesoporous zeolites potentially improve the efficiency of zeolitic catalysis via increase in external surface area, accessibility of large molecules due to the mesoporosity and hydrothermal stability due to zeolitic crystalline walls. During past few years various research groups emphasized the importance of the synthesis of siliceous materials with micro- and mesoporosity [7-9]. Microwave synthesis had... 

Despite the advantages offered by CNTs and CNFs, there are still many obstacles (cost, synthesis methods) to overcome to allow large-scale production. Another type of catalyst support material is mesoporous carbon that provides high surface area and conductivity [100, 141]. It can be classified into ordered (OMC) and disordered (DOMC) mesoporous carbon [100], OMCs have been extensively used as catalyst support materials for fuel cells [140,142-146], The large surface area and 3D connected monodis-persed mesospheres facilitate diffusion of the reactants, making them very attractive materials as catalyst supports [100]. 

Gu, Z., Deng, B. and Yang, J. (2007) Synthesis and evaluation of iron-containing ordered mesoporous carbon (FeOMC) for arsenic adsorption. Microporous and Mesoporous Materials, 102(1-3), 265-73. 

Figure 2.15 General concept of the syntheses of mesoporous materials (a) mesoporous silica synthesis with soft template (b) mesoporous carbon synthesis with hard template.

Combining aspects of carbon and silicon chemistry while at the same time expanding the tool box of the periodic table, recently, a first report on the templated synthesis of mesoporous silicon oxycarbide (SiOC) and silicon carbonitride (SiCN) as analogs of the well-known mesoporous silica materials discussed in many chapters of the book has appeared (Fig. 25.5),58 opening an even wider horizon for the exploration of SiC-related nanomaterials in the fields covered in this book. 

Titirici MM, Thomas A, Yu SH, Antonietti M. A direct synthesis of mesoporous carbon with bicontinuous pore morphology from crude plant material by hydrothermal carbonization. Chem Mater. 2007 19 4205-12. 

Recently, there has been an increasing interest in the synthesis of ordered mesoporous carbons, since such materials are very promising as adsorbents, catalyst supports, and electrochemical double-layer capacitors. Ordered mesoporous silicas have been shown as suitable templates to prepare periodic mesoporous carbons with various pore shapes and connectivity. The synthesis procedure involves impregnation of the mesoporous silica with an appropriate carbon precursor, carbonization of carbon source, and subsequent removal of silica using an aqueous solution of HF or NaOH. ... 

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