Templated Porous Carbon Materials Recent Developments

Templated Porous Carbon Materials Recent Developments 

School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, UK 

Porous Materials Edited by Duncan W. Bruce, Dermot O Hare and Richard I. Walton 2011 John Wiley Sons, Ltd. 

On the other hand, the soft template method involves cooperative assembly between the structure-directing agents (usually surfactants) and organic precursor species in solution. Therefore, the carbon structures obtained via soft templating are more flexible and their formation is dependent on temperature, type of solvent and ionic strength. However, there are currently only limited examples for the successful fabrication of porous carbon via the soft template method, which were reviewed recently by Wan et alP Soft template and hard template routes have been classified as endotemplate and exotemplate, respectively. 

Historically, the hard template carbonisation method was first reported by Knox et al. in 1986. They demonstrated the synthesis of graphitised porous carbons for liquid chromatography separation by impregnation of spherical porous silica gel with phenolic resin and subsequent carbonisation and removal of silica gel. Since the first reported use of template carbonisation, the method has been employed extensively to prepare ordered porous carbons. A variety of inorganic porous templates including zeo- 

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Templated Porous Carbon Materials Recent Developments... 

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... 

More recently, models were developed to achieve the elimination of the template under milder conditions. The first relies on the preparation of a dialkyl carbonate system by polycondensation/hydrolysis of the corresponding precursor family 26. Thermal treatment of a non-porous xerogel of 26 at 250-350 °C results in the simultaneous elimination of CO2 and hybrid materials with residual hydroxyalkyl and olefinic functions according to Scheme 18. It is interesting to note that this approach also allows the preparation of materials which cannot be prepared by other routes, such as direct polycondensation of the corresponding allyl and hydroxyalkyl precursors. 

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