Patent ID: 7718155

Claim:
A method for manufacturing carbon nanostructures, comprising: (i) forming a plurality of catalytic templating nanoparticles by: (a) reacting a plurality of precursor catalyst atoms with a plurality of organic dispersing agent molecules to form complexed catalyst atoms; and (b) allowing or causing the complexed catalyst atoms to form the templating nanoparticles; (ii) forming one or more intermediate carbon nanostructures by polymerizing a carbon precursor in the presence of the templating nanoparticles; (iii) carbonizing the intermediate carbon nanostructures to form a plurality of composite nanostructures; and (iv) removing the templating nanoparticles from the composite nanostructures to yield the carbon nanostructures, the carbon nanostructures having a BET specific surface area greater than about 120 m 2 /g.