Surfactant Assembly within Pickering Emulsion Droplets for Fabrication of Interior-Structured Mesoporous Carbon Microspheres

Dawei Liu; Nan Xue; Lijuan Wei; Ye Zhang; Zhangfeng Qin; Xuekuan Li; Bernard P Binks; Hengquan Yang

doi:10.1002/anie.201805022

Surfactant Assembly within Pickering Emulsion Droplets for Fabrication of Interior-Structured Mesoporous Carbon Microspheres

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2018 Aug 20;57(34):10899-10904. doi: 10.1002/anie.201805022. Epub 2018 Jul 20.

Authors

Dawei Liu^{1

2

3}, Nan Xue², Lijuan Wei², Ye Zhang¹, Zhangfeng Qin¹, Xuekuan Li¹, Bernard P Binks⁴, Hengquan Yang²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Taiyuan, 030001, China.
² School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, 030006, China.
³ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
⁴ School of Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Hull, Hull, HU6 7RX, UK.

PMID: 29962066
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201805022

Abstract

Large-sized carbon spheres with controllable interior architecture are highly desired, but there is no method to synthesize these materials. Here, we develop a novel method to synthesize interior-structured mesoporous carbon microspheres (MCMs), based on the surfactant assembly within water droplet-confined spaces. Our approach is shown to access a library of unprecedented MCMs such as hollow MCMs, multi-chambered MCMs, bijel-structured MCMs, multi-cored MCMs, "solid" MCMs, and honeycombed MCMs. These novel structures, unattainable for the conventional bulk synthesis even at the same conditions, suggest an intriguing effect arising from the droplet-confined spaces. This synthesis method and the hitherto unfound impact of the droplet-confined spaces on the microstructural evolution open up new horizons in exploring novel materials for innovative applications.

Keywords: Pickering emulsions; carbon microspheres; confinement effects; mesoporous materials; surfactant assemblies.