This article was accepted into the corpus but its outbound wikilinks were never NER-processed — typical at the deepest BFS hop or when the run's entity cap was reached. No expansion funnel to show.
| Ordered mesoporous carbon | |
|---|---|
| Name | Ordered mesoporous carbon |
| Category | Carbon material |
| Porosity | Mesoporous |
Ordered mesoporous carbon is a class of porous carbonaceous materials notable for uniform mesopore arrays and high surface area that enable tunable adsorption, catalysis, and energy storage functions. Researchers across institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Max Planck Society, University of Cambridge, Stanford University, and Tsinghua University have advanced synthesis and application studies, while industrial partners including BASF, Toyota, and Samsung have explored commercialization pathways. Work on ordered mesoporous carbon intersects research themes associated with Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Graphene, Carbon nanotube, Zeolite, and Activated carbon.
Ordered mesoporous carbon emerged from templating strategies developed after breakthroughs at laboratories like Mobil Corporation and research groups at University of California, Berkeley and CNRS that also influenced studies on MCM-41, SBA-15, KIT-6, and CMK-3. The material is positioned alongside established porous solids such as Zeolite Y, Metal–organic framework, Covalent organic framework, Silica gel, and Porous carbon. Interest in ordered mesoporous carbon spans sectors represented by organizations such as European Space Agency, NASA, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Argonne National Laboratory.
Synthesis commonly employs hard-templating and soft-templating approaches pioneered in collaborations involving Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, Kresge, Yamauchi, and teams at University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign and Kyoto University. Hard-templating routes use ordered silica templates like SBA-15 and MCM-48 produced by researchers affiliated with Mobil Corporation and BASF, followed by carbon infiltration via precursors such as sucrose, phenolic resin, or pitch derived in studies at Dow Chemical and ExxonMobil. After carbonization—techniques refined by groups at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory—templates are removed using etchants developed by teams at DuPont and 3M. Soft-templating employs block copolymers related to polymers from DuPont and BASF and surfactants characterized in work by Flory–Huggins and Block copolymer self-assembly literature, enabling direct carbonization with fewer processing steps, as demonstrated in labs at Harvard University and University of Tokyo.
Ordered mesoporous carbon exhibits hexagonal, cubic, or bicontinuous pore symmetries comparable to structures studied at M.I.T., Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, and ETH Zurich. Characterization techniques standardized by facilities such as European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and Diamond Light Source include nitrogen physisorption (BET), small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) developed at IBM Research, and Raman spectroscopy influenced by work at Columbia University. Typical properties reported by teams at University of California, Los Angeles and National Institute of Standards and Technology are specific surface areas of 500–2000 m2·g−1 and pore diameters in the 2–50 nm range, with tunable wall thicknesses informed by studies at Imperial College London.
The carbon framework derives from precursors studied by chemists at Dow Chemical Company and Shell, producing graphitic and amorphous domains similar to those characterized in Graphite and Glass-like carbon research at University of Manchester. Surface modification strategies developed at University of California, Santa Barbara and ETH Zurich include heteroatom doping (nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus) explored in projects tied to RIKEN and Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, and covalent or noncovalent grafting of functional groups pioneered by teams at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These functionalizations enable catalytic active sites akin to motifs in Platinum group metals studies and anchor redox-active species analogous to work on Polyaniline and Quinone derivatives at University of Oxford.
Ordered mesoporous carbon has been deployed in applications spanning supercapacitors, batteries, catalysis, adsorption, and separation, with demonstrations at Toyota Research Institute, Tesla, Inc., Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Shell plc, and Siemens. In electrochemical energy storage, groups at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, LG Chem, Panasonic and Harvard University showed enhanced ion transport analogous to advances in Lithium-ion battery and Sodium-ion battery research. In catalysis and electrocatalysis, teams affiliated with Sargent Lab, MIT Energy Initiative, and California Institute of Technology integrated metal nanoparticles and single-atom sites inspired by Fischer–Tropsch process and Oxygen reduction reaction studies. Gas capture and separation applications build on frameworks from Air Liquide and Dow Chemical Company and echo developments from MOF-74 and Zeolite Y research.
Performance metrics evaluated by National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and academic consortia at University of California, Berkeley indicate excellent rate capabilities, high cyclability, and tunable selectivity, yet limitations persist: scalability challenges noted by BASF and Covestro, structural stability under harsh conditions studied at Sandia National Laboratories, and cost factors influenced by precursor and template supply chains exemplified in analyses by McKinsey & Company and International Energy Agency. Competing materials such as Graphene, Carbon nanotube, Activated carbon, and Metal–organic framework often outperform specific metrics in particular applications, a point emphasized in reviews from Nature Materials and Advanced Materials.
Future work led by consortia including Horizon Europe, U.S. Department of Energy, Japan Science and Technology Agency, and major universities like Princeton University will likely focus on scalable templating-free syntheses inspired by advances at KAUST and EPFL, hybrid architectures combining ordered mesoporous carbon with Perovskite and Transition metal dichalcogenide layers investigated at Purdue University and University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, and life-cycle assessments promoted by United Nations Environment Programme and World Economic Forum. Outstanding challenges include integrating ordered mesoporous carbon into existing supply chains managed by corporations such as ArcelorMittal and 3M, achieving reproducible single-atom site incorporation as pursued at Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion, and meeting regulatory and safety frameworks overseen by agencies like European Chemicals Agency and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Category:Carbon materials