(397ap) Design and Synthesis of N-Doped Mesoporous Carbon Materials Using Modified-Pyrrole Monomer and Block Copolymer Template

Porous materials such as activated carbons, zeolites, silica gels, and inorganic oxides are of great interest because of their potential applications in adsorption, catalysis, separation, purification processes, optics, electronics, etc. Among these materials, ordered mesoporous carbons have attracted considerable attention owing to their high surface area, tunable pore structure and narrow pore size distribution. On the other hand, nitrogen doped carbons have shown enhanced mechanical, thermal and electrical properties; therefore, there are increasing effort in making of N-doped mesoporous carbon, which combine the high porosity of the mesoporous framework and unique chemical functionality. N-doped mesoporous carbons are often prepared by nanocasting method using a sacrificial template, usually porous silica. The template is impregnated with nitrogen containing organic molecules, followed by carbonization and removal of silica template or through post-synthesis treatment of mesoporous carbon using acetonitrile or ammonia CVD. These multiple-steps processes are costly and time consuming. Other methods include the co-assembly of nitrogen containing monomer (melamine) with structural directing agent; however, the resulting porous polymer is not rigid enough to withstand harsh carbonization condition.

In this work, we report successful synthesis of nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon using modified-pyrrole monomer as nitrogen sources. Through molecular co-assembly with triblock copolymer and oxidative polymerization during sol-gel preparation, ordered mesoporous polymer was made. Synthesis of mesoporous polymer is often challenging due to macrophase separation and polymer demixing. Nitrogen rich mesoporous carbon was resulted from carbonization of the respective polymer without structure collapse. High surface area and nitrogen loading enable its application in carbon capture and electric double-layer capacitors.