Hierarchical porous carbon microparticles (HPCMs) are produced by milling and sieving porous monolithic carbon, which was obtained by carbonization of a resorcinol-formaldehyde gel in the presence of surfactant as a pore stabilizer. The obtained HPCMs has a surface area of 536 m(2) g(-1) and maximum specific capacitance and areal capacitance, measured at slow scan rates, of 194 F g(-1) and 152 mF cm(-2) respectively. Moreover, the carbon surface remains accessible at 100 mV s(-1) with large values of specific capacitance (154 F g(-1)) and areal capacitance (121 mF cm(-2)), making the material suitable for fast super-capacitors. The HPCMs are then built into electrostatic self-assembled (ESA) adsorbed layers by sequential immersion of a planar electrode in HPCMs dispersions and a cationic polyelectrolyte. Using soluble redox molecules, it is possible to detect the finite (inside the pores) and semi-infinite (outer surface) diffusion of redox species. The specific capacitance of the HPCMs could be increased up to 5 times (to ca. 900 F g(-1) in acid media) by adsorption of naphthoquinone molecules on the carbon surface. Using the ESA process, it is possible to build a layer with three different quinones in a single electrode. The specific capacitance of those layers is more than 4 times higher and maintained nearly constant in a wide range of potential. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.