Fabrication of mesoporous polymer/silica hybrid using surfactant-mediated sol-gel method

A mesoporous polymer/silica hybrid was fabricated by a surfactant-mediated sol-gel method. Under our experimental conditions, acrylonitrile (AN) monomer was located at the exterior of micelles and the sol-gel reaction of tetraethoxyorthosilicate (TEOS) proceeded concurrently with the polymerization reaction of the AN monomer. In other words, the micelle/polyacrylonitrile/silica precursor was synthesized through the radical polymerization accompanied with a hydrolysis/condensation single reaction in a reaction system. This is a unique characteristic of our methodology, which embraces the concept of 'micelle templating'. The pore diameter of the mesoporous polymer/silica hybrid could be tuned by varying the spacer length and concentration of surfactants. Furthermore, compared with conventional mesoporous carbons, the carbonized mesoporous polymer/silica hybrids displayed an enhanced electrical performance favorable for use as a supercapacitor. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.