Lysine-assisted rapid synthesis of crack-free hierarchical carbon monoliths with a hexagonal array of mesopores

Abstract The rapid and scalable synthesis of hierarchical carbon monoliths with an ordered mesostructure and fully interconnected macropores has been demonstrated. Resorcinol and formaldehyde based polymers were used as the carbon precursor, triblock copolymer Pluronic F127 as the structural directing agent, and organic base lysine as both the polymerization catalyst and mesostructure assembly promoter. In the presence of lysine, homogeneous and crack-free polymer monoliths can be obtained through rapid gelation in 15 min at 90 °C. The polymer monoliths have a robust framework, which can be directly dried at 50 °C in air and carbonized at high temperature under a nitrogen atmosphere. The carbon monoliths are crack-free and have an ordered mesostructure with fully interconnected macropores. The surface area and the macropore volume are high with values up to 600 m2 g−1 and 3.52 cm3 g−1, respectively. Further steam activation of the carbon monolith can significantly improve the surface area to 2422 m2 g−1 while still maintaining the ordered mesostructure.