Synthesis of ordered mesoporous ruthenium by lyotropic liquid crystals and its electrochemical conversion to mesoporous ruthenium oxide with high surface area

In ordered to prepare high capacitance pseudo-capacitive oxides, it is important to design nanostructures with appreciable mesopores. Supramolecular templating has become a popular method to synthesize ordered mesoporous metals; however, the application of the same technique to synthesis of high surface area oxides is more demanding. We present here, the synthesis of ordered mesoporous ruthenium metal by lyotropic liquid crystal templating and its electrochemical conversion to ordered mesoporous ruthenium oxide by a simple, room temperature procedure. The bulk, unsupported metallic ordered mesoporous ruthenium exhibits high surface area of 110 m2 g−1, which is comparable to typical supported Ru nanoparticles. The oxide analogue gives a high specific capacitance of 376 F g−1, owing to the porous structure. These results demonstrate a possible facile and generic process to synthesize oxides with ordered nanostructures by utilization of the various phases that can be obtained with lyotropic liquid crystalline templates such as cubic, hexagonal, lamellar, etc.

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► Lyotropic liquid crystal templating has been applied to the synthesis of ruthenium black with an ordered mesoporous structure.
► The electrochemically active surface area of ordered metallic ruthenium black was 110 m2 g−1, comparable to state-of-the-art, supported ruthenium nanoparticles.
► Ordered mesoporous ruthenium was electrochemically converted to its oxide analogue, with high specific capacitance.