Control of mesoporous structure of carbons synthesised using a mesostructured silica as template Antonio B. Fuertes a, * , Dasha M. Nevskaia b a Instituto Nacional del Carb on (CSIC), Department of Chemistry of Materials, Apartado 73, 33080 Oviedo, Spain b Departamento de Qu  ımica Inorg anica y T ecnica, Facultad de Ciencias (UNED) c/Senda del Rey, 9, 28040 Madrid, Spain Received 3 January 2003; received in revised form 7 May 2003; accepted 10 May 2003 Abstract Mesoporous skeleton carbons with controllable pore size distributions (PSDs) were synthesised by modifying the extent of which the carbon precursor infiltrated the pores of the mesostructured silica, which was used as a template. When the silica porosity was fully infiltrated, carbons with a unimodal narrow PSD (3 nm) were obtained. This porosity was an inverse replica of the silica framework. If the silica pores were not completely filled, carbons with bimodalPSDsweresynthesised.Thecarbonsexhibitedtwokindsofmesopores:poresderivedfromthesilicawalls(3 nm)andlargerpores,withsizesofupto18nm,formedfromthecoalescenceofunfilledsilicaporeswhenthesilicawalls were dissolved. These results show that the synthesis of mesoporous carbons can be accurately controlled to obtain carbon materials with different PSDs using only one type of silica template. Ó 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Carbon; Mesopore; Silica; Template 1. Introduction Porous carbons with controlled porosity in the mesoporerangeof2–50nmhaverecentlyreceived great attention because of their potential use as advancedadsorbentsinadsorptionandseparation systems,ascatalyticsupportsinfuelcellelectrodes and as double-layer supercapacitors for energy storage.Numeroustechniquesforpreparingmeso- porous carbons can be found in the literature [1]. Howeveronlyafewofthesepermitforanaccurate control of mesoporosity. A few years ago, Ryoo et al. [2,3] reported on the preparation of meso- porous carbons using mesostructured silica mate- rials as templates. By means of this technique it is possible to obtain porous carbons, with a large surface area, a high porosity and controlled nar- rowporesizedistributions(PSDs)inthemesopore range. The preparation of these materials consists of (a) the infiltration of the porous structure of an inorganic material (template) by the carbon pre- cursor(generallyapolymerorprepolymer),(b)the polymerisation of infiltrated substance, (c) the carbonisation of the nanocomposites formed and (d)theeliminationofthetemplate.Thisprocedure isveryusefulforsynthesisingmesoporouscarbons * Corresponding author. Tel.: +34-985-28-0800; fax: +34- 985-29-7662. E-mail address: abefu@incar.csic.es (A.B. Fuertes). 1387-1811/$ - see front matter Ó 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S1387-1811(03)00403-7 www.elsevier.com/locate/micromeso Microporous and Mesoporous Materials 62 (2003) 177–190