Self-supporting hierarchically-structured hollow ordered porous carbon spheres from spatially tangent compression

Self-supporting hierarchically-structured hollow ordered porous carbon spheres (HOPCSs) have been synthesized successfully using hollow ordered mesoporous silica spheres (HOMSSs) with MCM-41 pore structure within shells as templates. The SEM and TEM observations show that the final HOPCS product presents spherical morphology with hollow interiors. The results of HRTEM, small angle X-ray Diffraction (SAXRD) and N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms confirm that the HOPCS inversely replicate the MCM41 hexagonally-stacked ordered microstructures within shells and possess the ordered porosity. Furthermore, the formation of ordered porous structures within HOPCSs is due to the two aspects below: (i) the inverse carbonaceous replicas filling in hexagonally-stacked mesopores in HOMSSs are compacted tangentially due to curvature difference along the radial direction, self-supporting ordered porous structures after removing silica template; (ii) the additional carbon deposition layers exist on the outside surface of the replicas, cooperatively cementing the carbon fillers.