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Ordered nanoporous polymer–carbon composites

Nature Materials volume 2, pages 473–476 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Nanostructured organic materials, particularly those constructed with uniform nanopores, have been sought for a long time in materials science1,2,3,4,5,6,7. There have been many successful reports on the synthesis of nanostructured organic materials using the so-called, 'supramolecular liquid crystal templating' route8,9,10,11,12,13. Ordered nanoporous polymeric materials can also be synthesized through a polymerization route using colloidal14,15 or mesoporous silica16,17 templates. The organic pore structures constructed by these approaches, however, are lower in mechanical strength and resistance to chemical treatments than nanoporous inorganic, silica and carbon materials. Moreover, the synthesis of the organic materials is yet of limited success in the variation of pore sizes and structures, whereas a rich variety of hexagonal and cubic structures is available with tunable pore diameters in the case of the inorganic materials18,19,20. Here we describe a synthesis strategy towards ordered nanoporous organic polymers, using mesoporous carbon as the retaining framework. The polymer–carbon composite nanoporous materials exhibit the same chemical properties of the organic polymers, whereas the stability of the pores against mechanical compression, thermal and chemical treatments is greatly enhanced. The synthesis strategy can be extended to various compositions of hydrophilic and hydrophobic organic polymers, with various pore diameters, connectivity and shapes. The resultant materials exhibiting surface properties of the polymers, as well as the electric conductivity of the carbon framework, could provide new possibilities for advanced applications. Furthermore, the synthesis strategy can be extended to other inorganic supports such as mesoporous silicas.

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Figure 1: The synthesis route to nanoporous polymer–carbon composite materials.
Figure 2: X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) patterns and pore-size distributions for CMK-3 mesoporous carbon and its composite material with crosslinked polystyrene (PS-CMK-3, 45 wt% polymer-loading on carbon).
Figure 3: Elution of 'Direct Blue 15' (an organic dye with 3.3 nm rod-like molecular geometry) after adsorption on CMK-3 and sulphonated PS-CMK-3 composite.
Figure 4: The electric conductivities of CMK-3 mesoporous carbon and PS-CMK-3, plotted as a function of compressive pressure at room temperature.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Creative Research Initiative Program of the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology, and by the School of Molecular Science through Brain Korea 21 project. R.R. thanks O. Terasaki at Stockholm university for TEM measurements and helpful discussions.

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  1. National Creative Research Initiative Center for Functional Nanomaterials, and Department of Chemistry (School of Molecular Science-BK21), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, 305-701, Korea

    Minkee Choi & Ryong Ryoo

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  1. Minkee Choi
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Correspondence to Ryong Ryoo.

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Choi, M., Ryoo, R. Ordered nanoporous polymer–carbon composites. Nature Mater 2, 473–476 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat923

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