From starch to carbonaceous foam: The effects of structure and conformation of the feedstock

Abstract

Three-dimensional carbon/carbonaceous foams (CFs) have attracted great research interest in recent years and have been widely used in many military and civilian fields. Replacing traditional raw materials (e.g., pitches and petrochemical raw material derived resins) with renewable biomass resources is becoming one of the trends in the research of CFs. In the present work, CF was prepared from starch. The effects of the structure and conformation of polysaccharides on the preparation of CF were studied from multiple perspectives and multiple scales using a variety of starches as raw materials. It is proved that the conformation of the raw material, a factor that is almost neglected in the research of pitches derived CFs, has a significant influence on the preparation of starch derived CF. However, hydrogen bonding, which is ubiquitous in biomass feedstocks, is not a primary factor affecting the thermophysical and thermochemical properties of the feedstocks in this study. It is not the key to the foaming state of starch derived CF. The results of this work will be instructive for the preparation and structural regulation of biomass derived CFs.