Preparation of hierarchical porous carbon by post activation

A series of hierarchical porous carbons (HPCs) have been prepared by a combination of soft-templating and post activation. As evidenced by N-2 sorption tests, the pristine mesopores were basically preserved and micropores were generated on the mesopore wall of mesoporous carbon (MC). The micropore generation on the mesoporous skeleton can be controlled by simply adjusting the KOH ratio and activation temperature. The BET surface area. mesopore surface area and total pore volume of the HPCs increase monotonously with increasing activation temperature and KOH/MC ratio. In contrast, the micropore surface area reaches the maximum at the ratio of KOH/MC of 4. Further increase of KOH/MC ratio and activation temperature reduces the micropore surface area. Structural characterizations confirm that the main mesopore channel was preserved during activation. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.