Abstract
This paper reports a simple way to produce porous graphitic carbons from a wide range of lignocellulosic biomass sources, including nut shells, softwood sawdust, seed husks and bamboo. Biomass precursors are milled and sieved to produce fine powders and are then converted to porous graphitic carbons by iron-catalysed graphitization. Graphitizing the raw (unmilled) biomass creates carbons that are diverse in their porosity and adsorption properties. This is due to the inability of the iron catalyst precursor to penetrate the structure of dense biomass material. Milling enables much more efficient impregnation of the biomass and produces carbons with homogeneous properties. Lignocellulosic biomass (particularly waste biomass) is an attractive precursor to technologically important porous graphitic carbons as it is abundant and renewable. This simple method for preparing the biomass enables a wide range of biomass sources to be used to produce carbons with homogeneous properties.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Bio-derived and bioinspired sustainable advanced materials for emerging technologies (part 2)’.
Highlights
Porous carbon materials have been widely explored for applications in energy devices such as batteries [1], supercapacitors [2] and fuel cells [3] due to their high surface areas and conductivity
The organic precursor decomposes to amorphous carbon and the iron precursor forms Fe or Fe3C nanoparticles which are believed to catalyse the conversion of amorphous carbon to graphitic carbon
We have shown that iron-catalysed graphitization can be applied to a variety of lignocellulosic biomass sources to produce porous graphitic carbon materials
Summary
This paper reports a simple way to produce porous graphitic carbons from a wide range of lignocellulosic biomass sources, including nut shells, softwood sawdust, seed husks and bamboo. Graphitizing the raw (unmilled) biomass creates carbons that are diverse in their porosity and adsorption properties. This is due to the inability of the iron catalyst precursor to penetrate the structure of dense biomass material. Lignocellulosic biomass ( waste biomass) is an attractive precursor to technologically important porous graphitic carbons as it is abundant and renewable. This simple method for preparing the biomass enables a wide range of biomass sources to be used to produce carbons with homogeneous properties.
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