Electrorheological effect of carbonaceous materials with hierarchical porous structures

Carbonaceous materials with different hierarchical porous structures for electrorheological (ER) dispersed phase have been synthesized by carbonization of as-prepared starch/silica precurser at different temperatures. The N₂ adsorption isotherms show that Cmeso-700 and Cmeso-500 particles have the BET surface areas of 1028 and 603 m² g^-1, respectively. They both have the mesoporous pores with size of about 4.6 nm and the microporous pores (1.1 and 1.5 nm, respectively). The BET surface areas and C/O atomic ratio of porous carbon materials can be increased with the carbonization temperatures. The rheological measurements indicate that the Cmeso-700 and Cmeso-500 ERF have the better ER effect resulted from their hierarchical porous structures. The shear stress of Cmeso-700 ERF is 900 Pa at 1000 s^-1 under 3 kV mm^-1, which is almost 4.5 times larger than that of Cmicro-350 ERF. The mesoporous carbon ERFs also show the better sedimentation stability than microporous carbon ERFs. The different ER effect of carbonaceous particles may derive from their different dielectric polarization property induced by the hierarchical porous structures.