A single step solid NH4F-assisted method for the removal of hard silica template to obtain microporous carbon for electrochemical applications

Process of obtaining microporous carbon by etching SBA-15 using solid NH 4 F. • Preparing microporous carbons by removing SBA-15 silica template using solid NH 4 F. • Single step removal of silica template during carbonization process itself. • Increasing carbonization temperature increases the surface area of carbon. • Surface area of carbon decreases at higher carbonization temperatures above 900 ℃. A new method for removing silica templates to prepare high surface area porous carbons is reported. In this method solid NH 4 F is used as a sacrificial agent to remove silica as SiF 4 in a single step process, thus eliminating the corrosive methods by using HF/NaOH in multi-step processes. This method is versatile to enhance the surface area and porous-network of carbons at higher calcination temperatures. The carbon sample prepared at 900 °C exhibits high surface area (861 m 2 g −1 ) among others and shows specific capacitance of 240 F g −1 at current density 0.5 A g −1 .