Spiral self-assembly of lamellar micelles into multi-shelled hollow nanospheres with unique chiral architecture

Functional carbon nanospheres are exceptionally useful, yet controllable synthesis of them with well-defined porosity and complex multi-shelled nanostructure remains challenging. Here, we report a lamellar micelle spiral self-assembly strategy to synthesize multi-shelled mesoporous carbon nanospheres with unique chirality. This synthesis features the introduction of shearing flow to drive the spiral self-assembly, which is different from conventional chiral templating methods. Furthermore, a continuous adjustment in the amphipathicity of surfactants can cause the packing parameter changes, namely, micellar structure transformations, resulting in diverse pore structures from single-porous, to radial orientated, to flower-like, and to multi-shelled configurations. The self-supported spiral architecture of these multi-shelled carbon nanospheres, in combination with their high surface area (similar to 530 m(2) g(-1)), abundant nitrogen content (similar to 6.2 weight %), and plentiful mesopores (similar to 2.5 nm), affords them excellent electrochemical performance for potassium-ion storage. This simple but powerful micelle-directed self-assembly strategy offers inspiration for future nanostructure design of functional materials.

Automated summary

Multi-shelled mesoporous carbon nanospheres were synthesized using a spiral self-assembly strategy, featuring diverse pore structures achieved through continuous adjustment of surfactant amphiphilicity. These carbon nanospheres exhibit excellent electrochemical performance for potassium-ion storage.