Tailored Design of Bicontinuous Gyroid Mesoporous Carbon and Nitrogen-Doped Carbon from Poly(ethylene oxide-b-caprolactone) Diblock Copolymers

Highly ordered mesoporous resol-type phenolic resin and the corresponding mesoporous carbon materials have been synthesized by using PEO-b-PCL diblock copolymer as a soft-template. The self-assembled mesoporous phenolic resin was found to form only at a specific resol concentration range of 40-70 wt% through the intriguing balance of hydrogen bonding interactions in the resol/PEO-b-PCL mixtures. Furthermore, the morphological transitions of the mesostructures from disordered to gyroid to cylindrical and finally to disordered micelle structure were observed with the increasing resol concentrations. By calcination under nitrogen atmosphere at 800 °C, the bicontinuous mesostructured gyroid phenolic resin can be converted to mesoporous carbon with large pore size without the collapse of the original mesostructure. Furthermore, the post-treatment of the mesoporous gyroid phenolic resin with melamine gave rise to N-doped mesoporous carbon with unique electronic properties for realizing a high CO2 adsorption (6.72 mmol·g-1at 0 °C).