Acid Induced Self-Assembly Strategy to Synthesize Ordered Mesoporous Carbons from Biomass

Hydrothermal carbonization of biomass is an economic and sustainable technique for the fabrication of functional carbonaceous materials. However, the introduction of biomass into synthesis of ordered mesoporous carbon materials achieves slow progress due to complicated requirements. It is still challenging to prepare biomass-derived ordered mesoporous carbon materials. Herein, we report a simple and effective strategy to synthesize ordered mesoporous carbon materials from renewable and environment-friendly pentose using one-pot hydrothermal synthesis. The as-synthesized ordered mesoporous carbon materials show mesopores of two-dimensional hexagonal symmetry and rich functional groups. Mechanism studies indicate that the acid facilitates the self-assembly of carbon precursors and soft templates and therefore induced the formation of ordered mesoporous carbonaceous materials under hydrothermal conditions. This is the first report on the S0H+X–I+ self-assembly mechanism that achieves success in biomass system. In addition, the unique materials show outstanding performance as supports in catalytic hydrogenation. Significantly, this acid induced self-assembly strategy will open up new avenues for designing functional biomass-derived carbon materials.