Polymer-templated mesoporous carbons with nickel nanoparticles

Soft-templating synthesis of mesoporous carbons in the presence of tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) and nickel nitrate was carried out to introduce nickel nanoparticles and create additional microporosity in these materials. This strategy was employed to synthesize phenolic resin-based mesoporous carbons with two different loadings of nickel nanoparticles and to obtain nickel-containing mesoporous carbon–silica hybrids. Removal of silica with NaOH solution from the hybrid composites gave mesoporous carbons with Ni particles and inversely, burn off carbon from the aforementioned composites gave NiO-containing mesoporous silicas. Nitrogen adsorption, small and wide angle X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and thermogravimetric analysis showed good adsorption and structural properties of the aforementioned materials.