Activation of carbide-derived carbon (CDC) with KOH generates superactivated carbons with high surface area (up to 2800 m 2 g À1 ). The KOH activation, at a CDC/KOH weight ratio of 1 : 4, was performed at between 600 and 900 C. Despite a 50% increase in porosity, the activated carbons retain a microporous nature with typically 90% of their surface area and 80% of their pore volume arising from micropores. The small micropores (8-12 A) of the CDC are retained in the activated carbons, along with the generation of a greater proportion of new 20A pores. The size of the larger pores increases slightly at higher activation temperature. The activated carbons exhibit an enhancement of up to 63% in hydrogen uptake from 3.8 wt% for the CDC to 6.2 wt% at À196 C and 20 bar. At 1 bar the superactivated CDC carbons store 2.7 wt% hydrogen, which is amongst the highest values ever reported for activated carbon. An increase in surface oxygen concentration also contributes to the enhanced hydrogen uptake. For example, activation at 600 C does not alter the textural properties, but enhances hydrogen uptake by ca. 30% compared to the CDC due to an apparent higher surface oxygen concentration.

Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS), work function measurements, low energy electron diffraction (LEED) and scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) have been used to study the adsorption and desorption of 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis[(trifluoromethyl)sulfonyl]imide, [C(2)C(1)Im][Tf(2)N], on the (1×2) clean surface reconstruction of Au(110) in the temperature range 100-674 K. The ionic liquid adsorbed without decomposition, and desorbed without leaving any residue on the surface. For adsorption at room temperature a monolayer of strongly bound ionic liquid was formed with four interface states visible in UP spectra. STM at 100 K showed that the monolayer consisted of well-ordered rows of adsorbed ionic liquid aligned parallel to the close packed rows of surface gold atoms (the [110] direction) with a separation of ×2 (the same as the clean surface reconstruction) between the rows in the orthogonal [001] direction. Multilayer adsorption at room temperature occurred by droplet formation followed by smoothing of the droplets to a layered morphology with time. Heating caused multilayer desorption at temperatures in the 363-383 K range, followed by partial monolayer desorption at 548 K to produce a Au(110)-(1×3) reconstructed surface with sub-monolayer domains of ionic liquid. Desorption of the remaining ionic liquid at 600 K caused the gold surface to reconstruct back to the clean (1×2) reconstruction.