NOVELTY - Making polymer particles in gel form via an emulsion or suspension process, comprises: preparing a reactant mixture comprising a monomer component comprising at least one phenolic compound, at least one crosslinking compound and a carrier fluid (comprises a surfactant at greater than or equal to the critical micelle concentration and volume average particle size (Dv, 50) of the polymer particles is less than or equal to 1 mm, or 50 wt.% or more of cyclohexane based on total weight of carrier fluid and Dv, 50 is less than or equal to 1mm or greater than or equal to 1 mm); and polymerizing the phenolic compound with the crosslinking compound.    USE - The process is useful for making polymer particles in gel form, where the polymer particles are useful in producing a carbon material used in an electrode, which is used in an electrical energy storage device, which is a double layer ultracapacitor, lithium/carbon battery, zinc/carbon battery, lithium air battery or lead acid battery (all claimed) and the carbon material is useful in electronic devices comprising wireless consumer and commercial devices comprising digital still cameras, notebook personal computers, medical devices, location tracking devices, automotive devices, compact flash devices, mobile phones, personal computer memory card international association (PCMCIA) cards, handheld devices and digital music players, where the ultracapacitors are useful in heavy equipment comprising excavators and other earth moving equipment, forklifts, rubbish trucks, cranes fro ports and construction and transportation systems comprising buses, automobiles and trains.    ADVANTAGE - The process: produces polymer particles, which provide carbon material for electrode, which retains greater than 90% of its capacitance after incubation at 2.85 V and 85 degrees C for 32 hours, where the capacitance is measured at a current density of 0.5 Amp/g employing an electrolyte comprising tetraethylammonium tetrafluoroborane in acetonitrile (claimed); provides large scale production of polymer gels and carbon materials; exhibits effective heat transfer compared to monolith procedures, thus provides more homogeneous products and significantly reduces risk of uncontrolled exotherms; provides carbon materials with desired characteristics e.g. microporosity, mesoporosity, high density, low density, specific particle sizes and near monodisperse particle size distributions, without additional processing steps e.g. milling; has ability to prepare carbon materials having any desired porosity; optimizes an electrode formulation and maximizes the power performance of electrical energy storage and distribution devices; produces carbon materials, which provide devices with long-term stability, fast response time and high pulse performance; and provides polymer gels and/or carbon materials with optimized particle size distributions, which provide enhanced packing of energy packing of polymer or carbon particles.    DETAILED DESCRIPTION - INDEPENDENT CLAIMS are also included for:    (1) a polymer gel having a particle size distribution such that Dv, 50 is less than 1 mm, preferably less than 0.1 mm and (Dv, 90-Dv, 10)/Dv, 50 is less than 3, where Dv, 10, Dv, 50 and Dv,90 are the particle size at 10%, 50% and 90%, respectively of the particle size distribution by volume; and    (2) a carbon material, where the maximum theoretical capacitance of the carbon material is greater than 25 F/cm3 as measured at a current density of 0.5 Amp/g employing an electrolyte comprising tetraethylammonium tetrafluoroborane in acetonitrile, and where the carbon material comprises less than 500 ppm of all atoms having a molecular weight of 11-92 as measured by photon induced X-ray emissions.