Graphitic Mesostructured Carbon from an Aliphatic Hydrocarbon Precursor

A mesostructured form of carbon was fabricated from a template of mesostructured silica by using pentane, an aliphatic hydrocarbon precursor. To synthesize the mesostructured silica, a buffered (pH of 6.5) mixture of nonionic Pluronic P123 surfactant, sodium silicate, and acetic acid were used. The impregnated silica with Fe$(CO)_5$ (wt 5%) and pentane was placed in a quartz tube, treated with pentane vapor at 800 ${^{\circ}C}$ for two hours to synthesize the mesostructured carbon. The XRD patterns of the carbon replica in the low/wide angle regions, its TEM images, and nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherm revealed that the long-range framework order of mesostructure with the pore size centered on 2.8 nm was maintained to some extent mainly due to some portions of mesophase carbon that work as a support to fix the hexagonal frameworks by anchoring on the pore surface with an improved graphitic character. The dc conductivity of the mesostructured carbon in pressed powder form at 6.0 MPa was 2.08 S/cm.