Novel mesoporous carbon molecular sieves have been prepared from SBA-15 materials as templates at different temperatures. This allows the synthesis of hexagonally arranged mesoporous carbons with pore diameters between 3.0 nm (CMK-3-100) and 6.5 nm (CMK-3-150). CMK-1 and CMK-2 have been synthesized using MCM-48 and SBA-1, respectively, as templates for comparison with the above materials. The structural order and textural properties of all the materials were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and nitrogen adsorption. The microporosity analysis of different mesoporous carbons such as CMK-1, CMK-2, CMK-3, CMK-3-130 and CMK-3-150 has been studied by n-heptane and cyclohexane adsorption. It has been found that CMK-2 has a large amount of micropores (upt to 50% of the total pore volume), while the other materials studied possess smaller amounts of micropores, Moreover, it was found that the mechanical stability of CMK-3-100 is high compared to mesoporous SBA-15 silica materials. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.