Nanocast carbon microsphere flowers from a lanthanum-based template

Hollow carbon microsphere flowers were nanocast from glucose, acrylamide, and acetylene sources. Carbon growth was catalyzed by a lanthanum graft copolymer template using wet acetylene. The resulting spherical shape is beneficial for 3-D porosity, and has a highly graphitic content as indicated by raman spectroscopy (I-D :I-G = 0.99). The carbon has a high surface area of 1000 m(2)/g, as well as strong pi-pi stacking of aromatic carbons. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.