Patent ID: 11878283
Assignee: ADVANCED & INNOVATIVE MULTIFUNCTIONAL MATERIALS, LLC
Field: Chemical engineering (Chemistry)
Classification: CPC B  C | IPC B  C

Claim 0:
1. A method for making a metal-impregnated, oxygenated hierarchically porous carbon (an “O-HPC-M”), the method comprising:
(A) preparing a hierarchically porous carbon (an “HPC”), the preparing comprising the steps of:
(1) mixing a carbon precursor with water and silica;
(2) freezing the mixture to form a solid carbon precursor-silica composite comprising first order pores on a surface of the solid carbon precursor-silica composite, the first order pores having an average diameter of about 1 μm to about 10 μm, and further comprising walls separating each first order pore;
(3) subliming frozen water from the frozen mixture;
(4) pyrolyzing the solid carbon precursor-silica composite to form a carbon-silica composite, a surface of which maintains the first order pores and the walls; and
(5) etching away the silica from the carbon-silica composite to form an HPC, a surface of which maintains the first order pores and the walls, the etching further forming second order pores in the walls, the second order pores having a peak diameter between about 7 nm and about 130 nm;

(B) physically activating the HPC surface, thereby introducing into the walls third order pores having an average diameter of less than about 4 nm;
(C) treating the activated HPC surface with an O2 plasma to oxygenate and thereby induce a negative charge on at least a portion of the activated HPC surface to form an oxygenated hierarchically porous carbon (an “O-HPC”);
(D) contacting the O-HPC's surface with an aqueous solution of a water-soluble metal salt, whereupon the metal ions attach to the O-HPC surface to form an O-HPC-M precursor; and
(E) reducing the attached metal ions of the O-HPC-M precursor into metal nanoparticles to form the O-HPC-M.