Surface area characteristics of furfuryl-alcohol-derived inverse opal carbons produced from silica inverse opal templates

Abstract

High specific surface area three dimensionally ordered carbons are produced from furfuryl alcohol in a double templating procedure utilizing a silica inverse opal. Unexpectedly, the carbons produced here do not form the expected array of carbon spheres; rather, a faithful reproduction of the underlying inverse opal is attained. It is found that the properties of the silica template strongly influence the surface area characteristics of the carbons. The surface areas of the carbons are proportional to that of the template, and are also found to increase with decreased macropore size, consistent with findings for furfuryl-alcohol-derived carbon inverse opals based on silica colloidal crystal templates. However, template calcination temperature has a very influential role on the surface area, playing a unique role in our materials when compared to the closest reported analogues.