A process for preparing a porous carbon material. The process comprises the process steps: providing a carbon source; providing an amphiphilic species; contacting the carbon source and the amphiphilic species to obtain a precursor; and heating the precursor to obtain the porous carbon material; wherein the carbon source comprises a carbon source compound, wherein the carbon source compound comprises an aromatic ring having one or more attached OH groups and an ester link.

Provided is a method for producing a porous metal oxide. The method includes: preparing a slurry by mixing a metal source, a pore forming agent and an aqueous solvent; drying the slurry to obtain a metal oxide precursor; and sintering the metal oxide precursor to generate a porous metal oxide. The metal source is an organometallic compound or hydrolyzate thereof containing a metal that makes up the porous metal oxide; the pore forming agent is an inorganic compound that generates a gas by decomposing at a temperature equal to or lower than a temperature at which the metal oxide precursor is sintered; and the slurry is prepared using 50 parts by weight or more of the pore forming agent with respect to 100 parts by weight of the metal source.

The invention relates to a method for the production of activated carbon, in particular particulate activated carbon, having an increased mesopore and/or macropore volume fraction, preferably having an increased mesopore volume fraction.

Provided are a positive electrode active material with which a nonaqueous electrolyte secondary battery having a high energy density can be obtained, a nickel-manganese composite hydroxide suitable as a precursor of the positive electrode active material, and production methods capable of easily producing these in an industrial scale. Provided is a nickel-manganese composite hydroxide represented by General Formula (1): Ni.sub.xMn.sub.yM.sub.z(OH).sub.2+α and containing a secondary particle formed of a plurality of flocculated primary particles. The nickel-manganese composite hydroxide has a half width of a diffraction peak of a (001) plane obtained by X-ray diffraction measurement of at least 0.10° and up to 0.40° and has a degree of sparsity/density represented by [(void area within secondary particle/cross section of secondary particle)×100](%) of at least 0.5% and up to 10%. Also provided is a production method of the nickel-manganese composite hydroxide.

A process for producing a surface-modified particulate lithium nickel metal oxide material is provided. The process comprises the addition of a controlled quantity of a coating liquid comprising a cobalt-containing compound to nickel metal precursor particles using an incipient wetness process followed by a calcination step.

An object of the present invention is to provide a powder of a CeO.sub.2—ZrO.sub.2-based complex oxide which enables to achieve an improvement in the purification performance at a low to middle temperature of an exhaust gas purification catalyst, and, in order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides a powder of a CeO.sub.2—ZrO.sub.2-based complex oxide, wherein a pore volume with from-10-to-100-nm diameters after a heat treatment performed at 1,000° C. for 3 hours in an air atmosphere, is 0.35 mL/g or more, and wherein an amount of carbon dioxide desorbed after the heat treatment, as measured by a temperature programmed desorption method, is 80 μmol/g or more.

The purpose of the present invention is to provide positive electrode active substance particles for a lithium ion secondary battery, such particles being capable of producing a lithium ion secondary battery having excellent high-speed discharge properties. The present invention is a granulated body of a positive electrode active substance for a lithium ion secondary battery, wherein the primary particle average diameter is 10 to 80 nm and the number of primary particles having a diameter of 100 nm or greater is no more than 5.0%.

The present invention provides a carbonaceous material suitable for a negative electrode active material for non-aqueous electrolyte secondary batteries (e.g., lithium ion secondary batteries, sodium ion secondary batteries, lithium sulfur batteries, lithium air batteries) having high charge/discharge capacities, and preferably high charge/discharge efficiency and low resistance, a negative electrode comprising the carbonaceous material, a non-aqueous electrolyte secondary battery comprising the negative electrode, and a production method of the carbonaceous material. The present invention relates to a carbonaceous material having a nitrogen content obtained by elemental analysis of 3.5 mass % or more, a ratio of nitrogen content and hydrogen content (R.sub.N/H) of 6 or more and 100 or less, a ratio of oxygen content and nitrogen content (R.sub.O/N) of 0.1 or more and 1.0 or less, and a carbon interplanar spacing (d.sub.002) observed by X-ray diffraction measurement of 3.70 Å or more.

This particle contains at least one titanium compound crystal grain, and satisfies requirements 1 and 2. Requirement 1: |dA(T)/dT| of the titanium compound crystal grain satisfies 10 ppm/° C. or more at at least one temperature T1 in a range of −200° C. to 1200° C. A is (a-axis (shorter axis) lattice constant of the titanium compound crystal grain)/(c-axis (longer axis) lattice constant of the titanium compound crystal grain), and each of the lattice constants is obtained by X-ray diffractometry of the titanium compound crystal grain. Requirement 2: the particle contains a pore, and in a cross section of the particle, the pore has an average equivalent circle diameter of 0.8 μm or more and 30 μm or less, and the titanium compound crystal grain has an average equivalent circle diameter of 1 μm or more and 70 μm or less.

Porous amorphous silica can be obtained from siliceous plant matter containing non-siliceous inorganic substances. The siliceous plant matter is soaked in an aqueous solution which includes a chelating agent. The chelating agent is present in an amount which helps to extract at least some of the non-siliceous inorganic matter. The aqueous solution is then separated from the siliceous plant matter. Beneficial properties are imparted to the siliceous plant matter by controlling the amount of at least one preselected non-siliceous inorganic substance in the siliceous plant matter. At the end of the process, the siliceous plant matter is heat treated in the presence of oxygen at a temperature to produce the resulting amorphous silica having the beneficial properties.