Cooperative assembly of phenolic resins with amphilphiles provides a facile route to fabricating ordered mesoporous carbons through pyrolysis of the assembled composite.  The high carbon yield of the phenolic resin provides a solid framework, while proper selection of the surfactant or block copolymer yields pores from its thermal decomposition.  Thin films can be challenging due to increased stresses during carbonization from confinement by the substrate, sluggish template mobility, and difficulties with achieving a preferred orientation.  Here we will discuss two routes to control the structure of these self-assembled films based upon solvent processing and thermal gradients.  These methods provide routes to achieve highly ordered and oriented mesoporous carbon films.  We use GISAXS (see Fig 1) and AFM to characterize the morphology as a function of processing conditions.  Significant moduation in the structure is possible through minor changes in the processing.

Processing effects on the morphology of mesoporous carbon films fabricated by cooperative self-assembly of phenolic resins

245th National Meeting (2013)

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