Conventional synthetic strategies do not allow one to
impart structural
anisotropy into porous carbons, thus leading to limited control over
their textural properties. While structural anisotropy alters the
mechanical properties of materials, it also introduces an additional
degree of directionality to increase the pore connectivity and thus
the flux in the designed direction. Accordingly, in this work the
structure of porous carbons prepared from resorcinol–formaldehyde
gels has been rendered anisotropic by integrating superparamagnetic
colloids to the sol–gel precursor solution and by applying
a uniform magnetic field during the sol–gel transition, which
enables the self-assembly of magnetic colloids into chainlike structures
to template the growth of the gel phase. Notably, the anisotropic
pore structure is maintained upon pyrolysis of the gel, leading to
hierarchically porous carbon monoliths with tunable structure and
porosities. With an advantage granted to anisotropic materials, these
porous carbons showed higher porosity, a higher CO2 uptake
capacity of 3.45 mmol g–1 at 273 K at 1.1 bar, and
faster adsorption kinetics compared to the ones synthesized in the
absence of magnetic field. Moreover, these materials were also used
as magnetic sorbents with fast adsorption kinetics for efficient oil-spill
cleanup and retrieved easily by using an external magnetic field.
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