The innovation demonstrates a polymer template method to prepare carbon aerogel through thermal treatment in CO.The unusual preparation of carbon aerogel is promising for advanced nanodevices because of its outstanding nanoscale porosity structures.This paper offers an explicit explanation on the microstructure and surface area of carbon aerogels under the amount influence of ZnCl2 and polyacrylic acid (PAA).In summary, carbon aerogel of high specific surface area (1560m2/g), continuous porosity and narrow particle size distribution is successfully prepared with the molar ratio of (PAA∶ZnCl2) 0.75∶40.As far as we know, this is a novel report on producing carbon aerogel through the polymer template method.Our work, surely, is able to provide a polymer template method for designing new porous carbon aerogel nanoarchitectures, which is promising for a wide range of future applications.