Dicyanamide Ionic Liquids: A Versatile Precursor System for Advanced Mesoporous Materials and Functional Composites

Ionic liquids (ILs) are highly suitable to act as precursors for nitrogen-doped carbon materials. Therefore two structural requirements must be fulfilled: On the one hand, the cation should carry nitrogen in a preferably aromatic environment, on the other hand nitrile groups are essential that can be e.g. incorporated by dicyanamide anions. Thermolysis of such ILs yields highly conductive nitrogen doped carbon exhibiting a graphitic microstructure. Furthermore, various nanomorphologies can be induced via hard-templating. The material has been shown to sufficiently suppress growth and agglomeration of Pt nanoparticles upon their electrocatalytic performance, when applied as a thin coating on the Pt host material. This novel concept of reactivity could further be applied in other fields of materials synthesis, paving the way for the one-pot synthesis of mesoporous carbon/silica composites and in-situ metal doping thereof.