Order Mesoporous Carbon Spheres with Precise Tunable Large Pore Size by Encapsulated Self-Activation Strategy

Order mesoporous carbon spheres (O-MCS) have wide applications in catalysis, absorption, and energy storage/conversion due to their ordered mesoporous channels, large surface areas, and quantum effects in the nanoscale. However, realizing a precise control of large mesoporous size still remains a big challenge. Herein, an encapsulated self-activation strategy to prepare highly ordered mesoporous carbon spheres with precise tunable large pore sizes is first reported. The large mesopore size is achieved by encapsulating mesoporous polymer sphere in compact silica shell for pyrolysis process. Moreover, the self-activation mechanism endows the O-MCS high surface area, large mesoporous size, and pore volume. In addition, simply increasing the amount of silica precursor will enlarge the pore sizes of O-MCS from 3.1 to 10.0 nm with increased specific surface area from 696 to 1186 m(2) g(-1). The large order mesoporous structure of O-MCS, which can facilitate diffusion of guest molecules in the channels exhibit great advantage in the adsorption and electrochemical applications.