Morphological design of polybenzoxazine-based carbon by soft templating method

Abstract

Porous materials, especially porous carbon have received much attention in the past decade because of their indispensable applications in energy storage and conversion, catalysis, adsorption, and others. Template method is the preparation of carbon materials with controlled architecture and relatively narrow pore size distribution. Two types of templates, classified as soft template or hard template, are used as molds to form porous materials. However, the drawbacks of hard template are multi-step and high cost. Which may cause a barrier to industrial applications. So, in this research, we report a facile process to synthesized porous carb on by using soft template method. Polybenzoxazine, a novel phenolic resin was used as a carbon precursor and triblock copolymer, Pluronic P123 was used as a template. The morphology of carbon particles could be design by adjusting the concentration of P123. The results from SEM micrographs showed that the carb on from polybenzoxazine /6.000% P123 composite exhibited a rod-like structure. Moreover, this research also study the effect of activation process by CO2 at 900 ℃ in order to increase the specific surface area of the resulting carbon.