Organic acid-assisted soft-templating synthesis of ordered mesoporous carbons

A series of soft-templated ordered mesoporous carbons (OMCs) was synthesized by using resorcinol and formaldehyde as carbon precursors, triblock copolymer Pluronic F127 as a soft-template, and an organic acid (acetic, benzoic, citric, oxalic, or succinic) as a polymerization reaction catalyst. The aforementioned organic acids were strong enough to facilitate the formation of ordered mesophases by the block copolymer template used and to catalyze the polymerization reaction of resorcinol and formaldehyde in this template. The use of weak organic acids instead of strong inorganic acids such as HCl eliminated inorganic anions from the reaction environment and resulted in high surface area OMCs. Basically, the resulting carbons showed the surface areas and pore volumes comparable to those reported for the carbons prepared under similar conditions but in the presence of strong inorganic acids. Electron microscopy analysis proved the presence of ordered mesopores, whereas thermogravimetric analysis showed a good thermal stability of these carbons.