Porous carbons are ubtiquitous with wide ranging applications from water purification to electrodes for batteries.  The performance of porous carbons in applications can be strongly influenced by the size and shape of the pores.  In this work, we demonstrate that ordered mesoporous carbon films can be fabricated on plastic substrates using roll-to-roll processing.  By selection of the substrate, additional carbon from the substrate can be obtained during carbonization to provide support to the highly porous ordered coating.  Additionally, flexible mesoporous carbon coatings with very high surface area (>1500 m2/g) are obtained through tri-constituent assembly of phenolic resin (carbon precursor), Pluronic F127 (template), and tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS, silica source) with etching of the silica after carbonization.  These carbon films can be bent and distorted without breaking.   Moreover, their high electrical conductivity and surface area make these materials ideal for electrodes.  We will discuss the performance of these flexible mesoporous carbons as electrodes in aqueous supercapacitors. Initial measurements indicate that the capacitance of the active material can exceed 100 F/g.  The ease of synthesis over large areas (over m2) makes this methodology attractive for functional electrodes in flexible electronics.

Surfactant templated ordered mesoporous carbon coatings via roll-to-roll processing for flexible, robust, high surface area electrodes

246th National Meeting (2013)

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