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.