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.