Dispersed carbon hollow-spheres with micropore shells and meso/macropore cores are prepared through a simple and efficient hydrothermal treatment directly using colloidal silica as template. The as-prepared hollow spheres are used as supercapacitor electrode material and exhibit high specific capacitance (about 270 F g(-1) at 0.5 A g(-1) in KOH aqueous electrolyte), long cyclic life and excellent rate capability, which is applicable for high performance electrical double-layer capacitors. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.