Fabrication of new nanoporous carbons through silica templates and their application to the adsorption of bulky dyes

New nanoporous carbons with extremely high mesopore volumes and surface areas have been produced using silica nanoparticles as templates. The polymerization of resorcinol and formaldehyde (RF) in the presence of silica sol particles generated RF gel-silica nanocomposites. Carbonization followed by HF etching of silica templates generated nanoporous carbons with pore sizes predominantly in the range of 10-100 nm. These carbons exhibited very high pore volumes of >4 cm(3)/g and high surface areas of similar to 1000 m(2)/g. These nanoporous carbons exhibited excellent adsorption capacities for bulky dyes. In the best case, the adsorption capacity of the nanoporous carbon is over 10 times higher than that of commercial activated carbon.