A Simple Method for the Synthesis of High Surface Area Mesoporous Carbon Monolith via Soft Template Technique

The aim of this work was the synthesis and characterization of a mesoporous carbon monolith (MC). The MC was prepared using the soft template method. Resorcinol and formaldehyde were used as the carbon precursor and triblock copolymer Pluronic F127 as the templating agent under acidic conditions. Several techniques were used to characterize the synthesized material such as Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller nitrogen sorption measurements (BET), Powder X-Ray Diffraction (PXRD), Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA). The work characterized the changes due to the decomposition of the template during the carbonization process to form the pores in the carbon material. The result confirmed that the mesoporous monolithic carbon prepared had a high surface area and a narrow pore size in the mesometer range.