Hierarchical porous carbon with graphitic structure synthesized by a water soluble template method

Abstract Hierarchical porous carbon (HPC) materials with graphitic structure, which exhibit an interesting highly developed three-dimensional porosity network of macropores in combination with meso-/micropores, have been synthesized by a water soluble template (NaCl) method combined with a metal-assisted catalytic technique at 850 °C. The soluble NaCl was used as a meso-porous and/or micro-porous structure-directing template, while glucose and Fe species were employed as carbon precursor and graphitization catalyst, respectively. Nitrogen adsorption–desorption analysis showed that with increasing the mole ratio between the metal precursor and the carbon precursor from 0.005 to 0.02, the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area of the HPC samples varied from 498 to 253 m 2 /g.