Morphology and texture of silica prepared by sol-gel synthesis on the surface of fibrous carbon materials

Silica materials are synthesized by the sol-gel method including the deposition of tetraethoxysilane on various micro- and nanocarbon fibers. The use of nanofibrous carbon as a template makes it possible to prepare thermally stable mesoporous SiO2 samples with unusually high surface areas (up to 1255 m(2)/g) and high porosity (up to 5.6 cm(3)/g). These silica materials and aerogels prepared by supercritical drying have comparable pore volumes. It is found by high-resolution electron microscopy that a thin-wall matrix permeated by channels is a prevailing structure of silica materials. When some catalytic fibrous carbons are used as templates, silica nanotubes can be prepared.