Fabrication and nanostructure control of super-hierarchical carbon materials from heterogeneous bottlebrushes

Advances in the performances of many modern materials fundamentally depend upon the exploitation of new micro/nanostructures. Therefore, ingenious design of hierarchical structures through the mimicking of natural systems is of increasing importance. Currently, there is an urgent need for creation of multidimensional carbonaceous structures by integrating a customized hierarchical pore architecture and hybrid carbon framework. Here we report the pioneering fabrication of novel super-hierarchical carbons with a unique carbonaceous hybrid nanotube-interconnected porous network structure by utilizing well-defined carbon nanotube@polystyrene bottlebrushes as building blocks. Hypercrosslinking of such heterogeneous core–shell structured building blocks not only allows for constructing amorphous microporous carbon shells on the surface of graphitic carbon nanotube cores, but also leads to formation of covalently interconnected nanoscale networks. Benefiting from such a well-orchestrated structure, these super-hierarchical carbons exhibit good electrochemical performances. Our findings may open up a new avenue for fabrication of unique and unusual functional carbon materials which possess well-orchestrated structural hierarchy and thus generate valuable breakthroughs in many applications including energy, adsorption, separation, catalysis and medicine.