A new microwave-assisted hydrothermal synthesis of carbon monolith is reported in this work. The process uses microwave heating at 100 degrees C under acidic condition by employing a triblock copolymer F127 as the template, and resorcinol formaldehyde as the carbon precursor. Scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, nitrogen sorption measurements, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray studies and thermogravimetic analysis were used to characterize the synthesized material. The carbon monolith is crack-free, mesoporous and has a high surface area of 697 m(2)/g. The results demonstrate that the microwave-assisted hydrothermal synthesis is a fast and simple approach to obtain carbon monoliths, as it reduces effectively the synthesis time from hours to a few minutes which could be an advantage in the large scale production of the material.(c) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.