Adsorption and structural properties of soft-templated mesoporous carbons obtained by carbonization at different temperatures and KOH activation

Two series of phenolic resin-based mesoporous carbons were prepared by soft-templating strategy, which involves the formation of thermosetting carbon precursor by polymerization of phloroglucinol and formaldehyde in hydrophilic mesodomains of a thermally decomposable triblock copolymer used as a soft-template. It was shown that the volumes of mesopores and micropores in the resulting carbons can be tuned by varying carbonization temperature of phenolic resins in the range from 400 to 1000 °C followed by the post-synthesis KOH activation at 700 °C. The highly microporous carbons were obtained by KOH activation of phenolic resins pyrolyzed at lower temperature (∼500 °C), while high temperature KOH activation (∼800 °C) afforded microporous carbons with preserved mesoporosity.