A single step solid NH4F-assisted method for the removal of hard silica template to obtain microporous carbon for electrochemical applications

Process of obtaining microporous carbon by etching SBA-15 using solid NH4F. [Display omitted] •Preparing microporous carbons by removing SBA-15 silica template using solid NH4F.•Single step removal of silica template during carbonization process itself.•Increasing carbonization temperature increases the surface area of carbon.•Surface area of carbon decreases at higher carbonization temperatures above 900 ℃. A new method for removing silica templates to prepare high surface area porous carbons is reported. In this method solid NH4F is used as a sacrificial agent to remove silica as SiF4 in a single step process, thus eliminating the corrosive methods by using HF/NaOH in multi-step processes. This method is versatile to enhance the surface area and porous-network of carbons at higher calcination temperatures. The carbon sample prepared at 900 °C exhibits high surface area (861 m2 g−1) among others and shows specific capacitance of 240 F g−1 at current density 0.5 A g−1.