Template synthesis of novel porous carbons and their applications

Abstract

Porous carbon materials have found wide applications in many traditional fields, such as adsorption, catalysis, and environmental technology. Emerging applications including hydrogen storage, electrochemical energy conversion and storage, and biomedical engineering require novel porous carbon materials with prescribed physical and chemical properties. Template synthesis allows one to precisely control over the materials properties. In this thesis work, a range of porous carbon materials with various pore structures and morphologies, including microporous carbons, ordered mesoporous carbons, three-dimensionally structured macroporous carbons, and hollow carbon spheres, were prepared using the template-synthesis methods. The carbon materials were characterized using a wide spectrum of instrumental-analysis techniques. The potential applications of the materials for energy storage and conversion including hydrogen storage, direct-methanol fuel cells, and rechargeable lithium-ion batteries were exploited. The experimental data collected in this work has shown that template synthesis is an effective approach to the fabrication of novel porous carbons with desired properties.