A one-pot route to synthesize highly ordered mesoporous carbons and silicas through organic-inorganic self-assembly of triblock copolymer, sucrose and silica

In this study, we present a simple one-pot route for the synthesis of highly ordered mesoporous carbons and silicas with two-dimensional hexagonal symmetries (p6mm) via organic-inorganic self-assembly of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS), triblock copolymer Pluronic P123 and sucrose under highly acidic conditions, Both PI 23 and sucrose are employed as structure-directing agents for self-assembly of silica and carbon precursors. By using P123/sucrose/silica composite directly catalyzed by H2SO4 in the synthesis mixture, the mesoporous carbons were generated after carbonization followed by silica removal, while the mesoporous silicas were also obtainable by calcination of the aforementioned as-synthesized composite in air. The developed carbon material possesses a high surface area up to 1225 m(2)/g, which is two times higher than the previously reported value (610 m(2)/g). The structural properties of the ordered mesoporous carbons were tunable simply by varying the reaction parameters and compositions. The present synthesis route has the advantage of being a single-step self-assembly approach and only involves the use of low-cost and environmentally friendly sucrose as an additional organic precursor. More importantly, both mesoporous carbons and silicas can be prepared from the same synthesis mixture by following different post-treatments, i.e., carbonization and calcination, respectively, and can offer great potentials for various applications of these mesoporous materials. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.