Facile Synthesis of Hierarchically Porous Carbons from Dual Colloidal Crystal/Block Copolymer Template Approach

A facile dual-templating approach is demonstrated to prepare hierarchically ordered macro-/mesoporous carbons. Monodispersed silica colloidal crystals are used as a hard template, amphiphilic triblock copolymer PEO−PPO−PEO as a soft template, and soluble resols as a carbon source. The procedure involves packing and aging of silica microspheres, evaporation-induced organic−organic assembly of mesostructures in the void of microspheres, thermosetting and carbonization of phenolic formaldehyde (PF), and removal of silica scaffolds by HF. The obtained porous carbons have a highly ordered face-centered cubic macrostructure with tunable pore sizes of 230−430 nm and interconnected windows with a size of 30−65 nm. The rigid silica hard templates can prevent the shrinkage of the mesostructure during the thermosetting and carbonization process, resulting in large cell parameters (∼18 nm) and pore sizes (∼11 nm). The bimodal porous carbon materials have large BET surface areas (up to 760 m2/g), large pore volumes (∼...