Rapid Synthesis of Ordered Mesoporous Carbon and Application in Batteries and Supercapacitors

Ordered Mesoporous carbon materials are well known for their high surface area, porosity and interconnected pore structure, which make them appropriate candidate for various applications such as electrochemical energy storage, adsorption, gas separation, catalysis etc. Among these, CMK series gained much attention due to its highly stable interconnected pore structure. Utilisation of CMK-3, especially in Li-S batteries is much promising due to its effective incorporation of sulphur in its structure.1 Highly ordered mesoporous carbon can be normally achieved by templating with ordered porous silica. SBA-15, the well-known ordered mesoporous silica, is an appropriate template for obtaining high quality interconnected mesoporous carbon compared to other silica templates. The derived carbon (CMK-3) was found to be a true replica of SBA-15 with one dimensional carbon tubes connected by carbon channels. The synthesis process of CMK-3 involved multiple steps such as preparation of SBA-15, impregnation of carbon precursor, followed by pyrolysis and removal of the template.2,3 Alternative strategies were essential to replace this complex and time-consuming standard procedure. Herein, we utilised ultra-sonication assisted method to reduce the time of synthesis. Mesoporous carbon obtained through both standard and ultra-sonication assisted method will be characterised and evaluated their performance as electrode materials in lithium-sulfur batteries and super capacitors. A detailed analysis will be given during the presentation.