A one-pot route to synthesize highly ordered mesoporous carbons and silicas through organic-inorganic self-assembly of triblock copolymer, sucrose and silica

In this study, we present a simple one-pot route for the synthesis of highly ordered mesoporous carbons and silicas with two-dimensional hexagonal symmetries (p6mm) via organic-inorganic self-assembly of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS), triblock copolymer Pluronic P123 and sucrose under highly acidic conditions. Both P123 and sucrose are employed as structure-directing agents for self-assembly of silica and carbon precursors. By using P123/sucrose/silica composite directly catalyzed by H₂SO₄ in the synthesis mixture, the mesoporous carbons were generated after carbonization followed by silica removal, while the mesoporous silicas were also obtainable by calcination of the aforementioned as-synthesized composite in air. The developed carbon material possesses a high surface area up to 1225 m²/g, which is two times higher than the previously reported value (610 m²/g). The structural properties of the ordered mesoporous carbons were tunable simply by varying the reaction parameters and compositions. The present synthesis route has the advantage of being a single-step self-assembly approach and only involves the use of low-cost and environmentally friendly sucrose as an additional organic precursor. More importantly, both mesoporous carbons and silicas can be prepared from the same synthesis mixture by following different post-treatments, i.e., carbonization and calcination, respectively, and can offer great potentials for various applications of these mesoporous materials.