Synthesis and electrocatalytic performance of ordered mesoporous carbons produced by a hard templating method using phenolic resol as carbon precursor

Ordered mesoporous carbons(OMC) were prepared by high temperature carbonization of in-situ synthesized phenolic resol from phenol and formaldehyde within ordered mesoporous silica SBA-15 and of mixture of SBA-15 and phenolic resol prepared in advance.These are denoted C1 and C2 respectively.Pt/C1,Pt/C2 and Pt/CMK-5(furfural as carbon precursor) electrocatalysts were prepared by a microwave-assisted polyol process.The microstructure of the samples was characterized by XRD,TEM and nitrogen adsorption.The performance of Pt loaded samples for methanol electrooxidation was characterized by cyclic voltammetry(CV).Results show that C1 has an ordered hexagonal(P6 mm symmetry) mesoporous structure with a BET surface area of 947 m2/g and a sharp pore size distribution around 4.5 nm.The Pt nanoparticles are uniformly dispersed on C1 with an average diameter of 3 nm,while for.C2 the pores are somewhat disordered and the Pt nanoparticles are agglomerated.The CV curves indicate that Pt/C1 exhibits a higher electrocatalytic activity for methanol elect￣rooxidation than do Pt/C2 and Pt/CMK-5 and a little bit lower activity than does commercial E-TEK Pt/C.The electrochemically active surface area of Pt/C1 is 54.2 m2/g.