A carbon nanopipe comprising a durable graphitizable carbon wall of tunable thickness of about 10-500 nm formed by exposing a silica fiber network to a carbon precursor vapor and thereby depositing a carbon film onto the silica fiber network at a temperature suitable for complete pyrolysis of the carbon precursor and removing the silica fibers. The atmosphere of the step of depositing is controlled by a two-stage gas manifold wherein stage 1 purges the reaction chamber with pure argon and stage 2 introduces the carbon precursor.