Versatile Nanoemulsion Assembly Approach to Synthesize Functional Mesoporous Carbon Nanospheres with Tunable Pore Sizes and Architectures

Functional mesoporous carbons have attracted significant scientific and technological interest owning to their fascinating and excellent properties. However, controlled synthesis of functional mesoporous carbons with large tunable pore sizes, small particle size, well-designed functionalities, and uniform morphology is still a great challenge. Herein, we report a versatile nanoemulsion assembly approach to prepare N-doped mesoporous carbon nanospheres with high uniformity and large tunable pore sizes (5–37 nm). We show that the organic molecules (e.g., 1,3,5-trimethylbenzene, TMB) not only play an important role in the evolution of pore sizes but also significantly affect the interfacial interaction between soft templates and carbon precursors. As a result, a well-defined Pluronic F127/TMB/dopamine nanoemulsion can be facilely obtained in the ethanol/water system, which directs the polymerization of dopamine into highly uniform polymer nanospheres and their derived N-doped carbon nanospheres with diversely novel structures such as smooth, golf ball, multichambered, and dendritic nanospheres. The resultant uniform dendritic mesoporous carbon nanospheres show an ultralarge pore size (∼37 nm), small particle size (∼128 nm), high surface area (∼635 m2 g–1), and abundant N content (∼6.8 wt %), which deliver high current density and excellent durability toward oxygen reduction reaction in alkaline solution.