Fabrication and nano-structure control of carbon aerogels via a microemulsion-templated sol–gel polymerization method

Carbon aerogels were successfully fabricated by a microemulsion-templated sol–gel polymerization method. When a suitable molar ratio of surfactant to resorcinol (S/R) and an appropriate resorcinol–formaldehyde concentration were selected, the organic gels thus obtained could be dried with little shrinkage by heating at ambient pressure. The size of carbon nano-particles and the pore size of carbon aerogels thus produced decrease with an increase of S/R. The highest specific surface area and specific mesopore volume of the carbon aerogels prepared by our method were 620 m2 g−1 and 1.14 cm3/g, respectively.