Monomer Self-Deposition for Ordered Mesoporous Carbon for High-Performance Supercapacitors

Ordered mesoporous carbons (OMCs) have emerged as promising candidates for applications in adsorption, lithium-ion batteries, supercapacitors, metal-free catalysts, and catalyst supports owing to the ordered mesoporous channels, large surface areas, and quantum effects on the nanoscale. Herein, a new and simple self-deposition following solid-phase grinding method was used to prepare OMCs by direct transformation of phenol monomers into mesoporous carbon. The transformation occurred under metal-salt catalysis and by using mesoporous silica as a template. The obtained OMC completely replicated the morphology of the template and exhibited high surface area, large pore volume, and uniform mesoporous structure. The advantage of this method is that no solvents or extra pre-polymerization processes are needed, resulting in simple and easy operation and high universality. Owing to the abundant mesopores and high surface area, the OMC samples have good electrochemical properties and high potential for electrochemical materials.