Ordered mesoporous carbons (OMCs) have increasingly greater attention because of their ordered mesoporosity, high surface area, and adjustable pore symmetry, which have found wide applications in energy storage devices and supercapacitors. While the conventional methods of OMCs synthesis have some problems like pore collapse and partially graphitic. Therefore, it still remains a challenge to synthesize highly graphitic frameworks with well-defined mesoporosity and high surface area.

Recently, center researcher, Prof. Angang Dong from FDU reported a simple synthetic methodology, three-dimensional superlattices self-assembled from colloidal Fe3O4 nanocrystals capped with oleic acid are first used to produce OMCs upon the carbonization of OA ligands followed by the removal of Fe3O4. The Fe3O4 derived OMCs are then converted into mesoporous graphene frameworks (MGFs) by simple heat treatment at 1000 °C-1600°C. The resulting MGFs are characterized by large pore volume (ca. 1.8 cm3 g−1), and high surface area (ca. 1000 m2 g−1), ultrathin pore walls consisting of three to six stacking graphene layers, with the pore width tunable within the range of 8–20 nm by controlling Fe3O4. This new approach will open new opportunities for the rational design of few-layer-graphene-based porous materials with more complicated architectures, which may find applications in catalysis, absorption, and energy storage. (“Highly ordered mesoporous few-layer graphene frameworks enabled by Fe3O4 nanocrystal superlattices”, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 5727. (DOI: 10.1002/anie.201501398).