Nanocubes: “Cubism” on the Nanoscale: From Squaric Acid to Porous Carbon Cubes (Small 21/2016)

The development of convenient and efficient template-free methods for the synthesis of hierarchical porous carbon materials is highly desirable. On page 2906, N. Fechler and co-workers prepare porous crystalline particles with a 3D cubic morphology by a one-step, template-free coordination of zinc ions to squaric acid molecules. Subsequently, these crystalline particles could be transferred into cubic hierarchical carbon to form carbon-based composites with excellent capacitive performance.