SYNTHESIS OF MESOPOROUS CARBON MATERIALS via NANOCASTING ROUTE - COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GLYCEROL AND SUCROSE AS CARBON SOURCES

In this work, mesoporous carbon has been synthesized using mesoporous silica molecular sieves as templates. Using highly ordered mesoporous silica as template, nanocasting has brought forward incredible possibilities in preparing novel mesostructured materials. The mesoporous silica allows controlling the pore diameters, providing new possibilities for many applications in adsorption and catalysis. In a synthesis process of mesoporous carbon materials via nanocasting route, different types of carbon precursors could be used. Firstly, the infiltrated carbon precursor into silica mesopores is subjected to a polymerization process, and then carbonized in order to obtain the carbon framework. The silica template is subsequently removed with hydrofluoric acid and the mesoporous carbon is successfully obtained. Taking into account that the nature of the carbon precursor may influence some of the carbons characteristics, next we will present a comparative study of sucrose-based and glycerol-based mesoporous carbons templated on SBA-15 mesoporous silica. N2 sorption, XRD, TGA and SEM were used to characterize the synthesized carbon materials.