Synthesis, Nickel Decoration, and Hydrogen Adsorption of Silica-Templated Mesoporous Carbon Material with High Surface Area

Porous carbons are important adsorbents for hydrogen. In this work mesoporous carbon material with ultrahigh surface area is prepared with hexagonally packed mesoporous silica (HMS) as template. After a systematic optimization of different synthesis parameters, carbon material with a specific surface area of 2644 m2/g is obtained with resol as carbon precursors, the highest value reported so far for silica-templated mesoporous carbons. The material can be loaded with nickel nanoparticles through addition of nickel chloride hexahydrate into the resol solution. Hydrogen uptake of the nickel-decorated carbon at room temperature and 20 bar reaches 2.66 mmol/g, 78% higher than that of the pristine carbon. Due to the sharp decrease of the specific surface area and pore volume after nickel decoration, the improvement is attributed to effects of nickel nanoparticles.