Bimodal, templated mesoporous carbons for capacitor applications Original Research Article

Several high capacitance ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC) materials, containing a bimodal pore distribution, were synthesized directly using hexagonal mesoporous silicas (HMS) as the template material. The HMS templates were formed using amine surfactants (CnH2n+1NH2) with hydrophobic chain lengths containing 8–16 carbons (n = 8–16). These HMS structures were found to have an interconnected wormhole structure, high textural mesoporosity, a surface area ranging from 910 to 1370 m2/g, and a total pore volume of 1.09–1.83 cm3/g. Also, evidence for a change in structure from hexagonally ordered to layered (for surfactants of chain length with n > 12) was found. The resulting OMCs, formed using sucrose as the carbon precursor, contain bimodal pores 1.6–1.8 and 3.3–3.9 nm in diameter and have a very high surface area (980–1650 m2/g). The OMCs were evaluated as electrode materials for electrochemical capacitors using cyclic voltammetry in 0.5 M H2SO4 solution, giving a tunable gravimetric capacitance that increased linearly with BET area (and surfactant chain length), up to 260 F/g, among the highest yet reported for ordered carbon formed from an HMS templated precursor. All OMCs studied in this work displayed a specific capacitance of ∼0.15 F/m2.