Preparation and characterization of porous carbons obtained from mixtures of furfuryl alcohol and phenol–formaldehyde resin

• Varying mixture composition led phase separation dynamics to change.
• Cured samples with higher FA content had skeleton of high polymerization degree.
• Porous carbons with controlled pore structure were obtained by changing FA content.

Crosslinked carbon network with interconnected pores were obtained from [furfuryl alcohol (FA) + phenol–formaldehyde resin (PF)] – ethylene glycol (EG) mixtures. The effect of FA/PF weight ratio (WF/P) on the pore structure of the porous carbons has been systematically investigated. The results showed that porous carbons with controlled pore size could be obtained by varying WF/P in the polymer system. With WF/P increased, the average pore size and apparent porosity increased from 11.8 to 127.7 nm and from 40.9 to 51.6%, respectively, and the pore size distribution broadened. The property change of the porous carbons was a result of polymerization dynamics change on curing of resin–glycol mixtures induced by varying WF/P in the polymer system. Increasing the initial WF/P led curing reactions to occur at relatively lower temperatures, and the degree of polymerization to increase after heat treatment at 150 °C for 16 h, thus cured bodies with different chemical structures were obtained.