Abstract: A facile soft-template method was developed for the synthesis of spherical micro-mesoporous hierarchical carbon material(SHC) by first reacting phenol with formaldehyde under basic conditions, and then self-assembling with Pluronic F127 as the template. The surface morphology and the performance of the material were examined with the surface area and porosity measurements, scanning electron spectroscopy(SEM), transmission electron microscope(TEM) and thermal analysis. The results showed that the morphologies of the samples were regulated by the softtemplate, pH and activation temperature. The optimum conditions were determined as the following: the mass fraction for the surfactant is 20%, pH value is 0.5 and the activation temperature is 700 ℃. The prepared porous carbon under the above conditions exhibits spherical structure with a uniformly diameter of 100～200 nm and is well dispersed. Vermicular and bimodal pores of 2.9 nm and 1.3 nm were observed. The maximum surface area and the pore volume reach 503.20 m2/g and 0.42 cm3/g, respectively. The results reveal that the surface area and the pore total volume of samples increase with the increasing of activation temperature. However, the pore size of the samples shows a reverse trendency.

Key words: spherical, micro-mesoporous hierarchical, porous carbon, soft template, Phenolic resin