Studies on Pore Characteristics of Microporous Carbons Prepared with Different Types of Silica Templates

Microporous carbons with narrow pore size distribution have been successfully synthesized by using hydrolyzed and calcined silica as templates and phenol formaldehyde (pf) resin as carbon precursor. Phenol formaldehyde-silica micro composites were prepared by solution route. Subsesequently, silica templates were removed by HF leaching. Resulting carbons were steam activated. The porous carbons were characterized by nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherm, SEM, FTIR analysis, iodine adsorption, thermogravimetry analysis, etc. Adsorption isotherms show that the porous carbon prepared from calcined silica as templates are microporous with 88% pores of size <2 nm porosity and are of type I isotherm, while porous carbon prepared by using hydrolyzed silica are microporous with 89% microporosity, shows hysteresis loop at high relative pressure indicating the presence of some mesoporosity in samples. The microporosity in porous carbon materials has a bearing on the nature of silica templates used for pore formation.