Calcium-Assisted Regulation of the Structures of Porous Carbons at the Micro-Nano Scale

Abstract

Here a facile and effective method was investigated to regulate the microstructures of porous carbons by adjusting the contents of calcium in precursors. The carbonization characteristics of precursors were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential thermogravimetric (DTG), and the results show that the weight loss rates of precursors decrease with the increases of calcium contents. The structures of carbonized samples and their derived porous carbons at the micrometer scale were characterized by Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the results show that the structures of carbonized samples change regularly with the increases of calcium contents in precursors, and porous carbons can inherit the structures from their corresponding carbonized samples. The pore characteristics of porous carbons at the nanometer scale were characterized by N2 adsorption and desorption, Barrett Joyner and Halenda (BJH) method and Horvath-Kawazoe (HK) method, and the results show that the existence of calcium in precursors can greatly increase the total pore volumes and specific surface areas of porous carbons derived from precursors, and interestingly it can be noticed that the micropore size distributions of porous carbons in the range of 0.58–10 nm are quite similar.