Abstract
Porous carbon foamswere prepared by pyrolysis of a phenolic resin by a dual template approach using silicamonoliths as hard templates and triblock copolymers as soft templating agents. A macroporosity of 50-80% arose from the Si(HIPE) hard template, while the soft template generated micro- or meso-porosity according to the operating procedure. The final materials exhibited a BET specific surface area of 400-900 m2 g-1, depending on whether non-ionic surfactants were used during the synthesis; moreover, their performances as Li-sulfide battery positive electrodes were investigated. We determined that the novel 2P5HF carbon foam presents more than 800 mA h g-1 (150 mA h cm-3) of remnant capacity after 50 cycles, an unprecedented performance.