Mesoporous carbon materials formed by nanosized particles have been synthesized by means of a nanocasting technique based on the use of mesostructured silica materials as templates. We found that the modification of the chemical characteristics of the surfactant employed allows mesostructured silica materials with particle sizes <100 nm to be synthesised. The mesoporous carbons obtained from these silica materials retain the structural properties of the silica used as template and consequently they have a particle size in the 20–100 nm range. These carbons exhibit large BET surfaces areas (up to 1300 m2 g−1) and high pore volumes (up to 2.5 cm3 g−1), a framework confined porosity made up of uniform mesopores (3.6 nm) and an additional textural porosity arising from the interparticle voids between the sub-micrometric particles. The main advantage of nanometer-sized mesoporous carbons in relation to the micrometer-sized carbons is that they have enhanced mass transfer rates, which is important for processes such as adsorption or catalysis.

The financial support for this research work provided by the Spanish MCyT (MAT2005-00262) is gratefully acknowledged. S. Álvarez thanks the Spanish MCyT for her FPI (BES-2003-0134) grant. T. Valdés-Solís thanks the CSIC-ESF for the award of an I3P post-doctoral contract.

7 pages, 3 figures, 1 table.-- Available online Jul 10, 2007.

Peer reviewed