Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis 107 (2014) 224–232 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis journa l h om epage: ww w.elsevier.com/locate/jaap Synthesis of high surface area silica gel templated carbon for hydrogen storage application Ruhit Jyoti Konwar, Mahuya De ∗ Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, Assam 781039, India a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 26 August 2013 Accepted 7 March 2014 Available online 16 March 2014 Keywords: Pyrolysis Templated carbon Furfuryl alcohol Silica gel Hydrogen storage a b s t r a c t In this study silica gel templated carbons were synthesized by pyrolysis using furfuryl alcohol as carbon precursor. Effects of temperatures (650, 750 and 850 ◦ C) and dwelling times (1, 2, 3 and 4 h) on physical properties of templated carbons were investigated. The synthesized templated carbons were studied for hydrogen uptake at atmospheric pressure and subzero temperatures (-50 and -100 ◦ C). The surface area and pore structure of the templated carbons varied significantly with synthesis parameters. Templated carbon with highest surface area (1975 m 2 /g) and pore volume (3.07 ml/g) was obtained at pyrolysis temperature of 650 ◦ C and 3 h dwelling time. For all synthesized carbons, 90–95% of the pores were in the range of 2–20 nm and 38–67% of the pores were in the range of 2–6 nm. Highest hydrogen uptake of 0.16 wt.% was observed at adsorption temperature of -100 ◦ C for templated carbon synthesized at 650 ◦ C and dwelling time of 3 h. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Porous carbons are widely used as adsorbent, catalyst, cata- lyst support and gas storage material due to their high surface area, high pore volume, chemical inertness, easy availability and low cost. For gas storage application fast adsorption–desorption kinetics and low weight of porous carbons are of added advan- tage [1]. Various researchers are working in the area of synthesis of porous carbon with high surface area and pore volume. Porous carbons, prepared by template method, are reported to have a well defined pore structure compared to that of conventionally prepared activated carbons [2]. Templated carbons can be synthesized by pyrolysis of organic compounds, which act as carbon precursors, in the presence of an inorganic porous material as template. In this method, the pores of the template are filled with the carbon pre- cursor followed by pyrolysis at elevated temperature. The removal of the template is expected to result in the formation of porous carbon with pore size corresponding to the thickness of the pore walls of the used template. However, in real situation final pore size of the templated carbon may be affected by collapse of template structure or shrinkage of the carbon during pyrolysis at elevated temperature. ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 361 2582270; fax: +91 3612582291. E-mail addresses: mahuya@iitg.ernet.in, mahuya de25@yahoo.co.in (M. De). Porous carbons are synthesized from different carbon precur- sors such as acrylonitrile, furfuryl alcohol, pyrene, vinyl acetate and inorganic templates such as different forms of zeolite and silica [3–14]. High surface area mesoporous carbons with well connected pores were reported to be synthesized from ordered silica based template using phenol/formaldehyde resin [5] and sucrose [6] as carbon precursor. In another study Jaroniec et al. [7] observed that the pore size of the templated carbon can be tailored by controlling the pore wall thickness of the template. Sim- ilar results were obtained by Ryoo and coworkers [8]. Fuertes [9] produced ordered mesoporous carbon with high surface area from furfuryl alcohol and ordered silica based template by tuning the pore wall thickness. Garrone et al. [10] studied the effect of syn- thesis temperature on carbons synthesized from various ordered silica based templates and observed that at higher synthesis tem- perature graphitic carbon content increased, whereas surface area and pore volume drastically decreased. Kruk et al. [11] investigated the effect of infiltration rate of polyacrylonitrile precursor on the surface properties and pore structure of silica templated carbon. Jaroniec et al. [12] reported synthesis of mesoporous carbon hav- ing pores in the range of 7–10 nm using silica gel template and acrylonitrile. The effect of intermediate steps was investigated by Klepel et al. [13] for amorphous silica gel templated carbon using sucrose as carbon precursor in presence of sulfuric acid. A brief comparison of BET surface area and pore volume of the templated carbons synthesized using silica based templates is presented in Table 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaap.2014.03.005 0165-2370/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.