High surface area mesoporous Co3O4 from a direct soft template route

Mesoporous Co3O4 with hexagonally ordered cylindrical channels has been synthesized by a single-step method using Pluronic soft micellar templates. The resulting material has been directly compared to isomorphous Co3O4 that was obtained via an established but laborious five-step nanocasting method. The soft template route employs only surfactant templates and a decane additive, which yields directly mesoporous Co3O4 by a gelling process in a carefully controlled basic (pH = 12.7) alcohol solution at 35 degrees C. The method is significantly faster and more economical than conventional nanocasting, and has similar overall reproducibility to the conventional multi-step route. The soft templated Co3O4 displays long-range ordered cylindrical microchannels with crystalline walls. Most importantly, it exhibits an unparalleled N-2 BET surface area of 367 m(2) g(-1).