Hybrid nanospheres with metastable silica-nanonetwork and confined phenyl for simple fabrication of high-surface-area microporous carbon materials

How to successfully achieve the effective construction and precisely control the pore structure of porous carbon materials based on advanced precursors, is still challenging. Herein, a kind of precise organic-inorganic hybrid nanospheres have been designed to synthesize activation-free and high-surface-area microporous carbon materials (MCMs), in which metastable silica-nanonetwork and confined phenyl are formed by the emulsion polymerization of phenyltriethoxysilane. Within this strategy, it is successful to realize the efficient formation of carbon framework, benefiting from the self-crosslinking of confined phenyl and the dual roles of metastable silica-nanonetwork. It is surprising that the silica-nanonetwork can act as the role of template, as well as cross-linker, making the obtained MCMs with high surface area (up to 2614 m2 g−1). Thus, as-prepared MCMs exhibit excellent performance as the electrode materials of supercapacitors in organic electrolyte, i.e. an energy density of 15.36 W h kg−1 at a power density of 27 kW kg−1.