Abstract
The pyrolysized carbon xerogel and aerogels were prepared from the sol-gel polymerization of resorcinol-formaldehyde(RF) followed by the dry process under ambient pressure and supercritical carbon dioxide condition respectively. The thermal behaviour of RF polymer xerogel was investigated with TGA analyzer to correspond with the pyrolysis process. The surface properties such as particle size, morphology and the point of zero charge of the pyrolysized porous carbon aerogels were studied for the precious metal catalyst supported media. It was found that the volume of the polymer aerogel decreased because of the significant linear shrinkage and weight loss of polymer gel during the carbonization. The point of zero charge of the carbon aerogel pyrolysized at $1050^{\circ}C$ under inert gas flow was about 10.