Hierarchically porous adamantane-shaped carbon nanoframes

Abstract

Hollow carbons have emerged as a new class of porous carbon materials, showing promise in a variety of areas. However, their morphology has been limited to spherical shapes, with the carbon shell possibly limiting access to their inner surfaces and utilization. Herein, we report a new type of hollow carbon material consisting of non-spherical, adamantane-shaped, hierarchically micro- and macro-porous, N-doped carbon nanoframes (mM-NCs) by exploiting selective etching and pseudomorphic thermal conversion of zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8). The mM-NCs showed superior performance as adsorbents for large dye molecules and as catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction relative to macropore-free N-doped carbons, which can be attributed to the presence of macropores, fully utilizable pore surfaces, and nitrogen species.