Abstract
Greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impacts of petroleum-based fuels and materials have necessitated the development of renewable resource-based alternatives. In the process to extract cellulose for converting it to bioethanol (bio-based gasoline) large quantities of lignin are produced as the main byproduct-making it useful for further processing application for sustainable materials. Lignin is the second abundant source of renewable carbon with an aromatic structure which makes it a potential candidate for carbon fiber production. Since lignin can be dissolved in a variety of organic and non-organic solvents, electrospinning has been used to produce precursor fibers for carbon nanofiber production. These carbon nanofibers have been tested as a potentially sustainable alternative for the current non-renewable electrodes in energy storage and conversion devices such as supercapacitors. Using lignin by-products from the fuel energy sector in making devices for electrical energy sector provides a great opportunity for promoting a circular economy from sustainable materials while also contributing to researching alternative sustainable materials in light of a global pandemic. This review presents a summary of the processing conditions for electrospinning different varieties of lignin, characterization of the electrospun fibers and the carbonization conditions for converting fibers. Different techniques that of the structural properties of the precursor fibers, characteristics of carbon nanofibers and their performance in energy storage devices are discussed. Compared to the other published reviews in this field, this review aims to present the current knowledge on material-processing-lignin-carbon fibers properties relationship.
Highlights
Environmental institutes set new targets for vehicle engine emissions
The results showed that at higher temperatures a narrower G and D band occurred and enhanced the intensity of the G band signal
Electrospun fibers have been used as precursors for the production of carbon nanofibers
Summary
Environmental institutes set new targets for vehicle engine emissions. Two of the approaches to reach the targeted values are reducing the vehicle weight by using high-performance, lightweight materials and substituting a fraction of gasoline with bioethanol or other alternative sources of energy (Mainka et al, 2015b; Mohanty et al, 2018).Addition of bioethanol to gasoline improves the engine performance and reduces emissions (Zhao and Wang, 2020). Environmental institutes set new targets for vehicle engine emissions. Two of the approaches to reach the targeted values are reducing the vehicle weight by using high-performance, lightweight materials and substituting a fraction of gasoline with bioethanol or other alternative sources of energy (Mainka et al, 2015b; Mohanty et al, 2018). Addition of bioethanol to gasoline improves the engine performance and reduces emissions (Zhao and Wang, 2020). The economic viability of bioethanol production from sustainable lignocellulosic resources highly depends on the utilization of the process’ byproducts for highvalue applications. The major byproduct of bioethanol production from lignocellulosic materials is lignin which is one of the most highly available resources of renewable carbon (Solomon et al, 2007; Dessureault, 2014). Compared to cellulose and other sources of renewable carbon, lignin is a good candidate for the production of carbon fibers owing to the aromatic structure, presence of phenolic and aliphatic hydroxyl groups, high carbon content, thermal stability and availability as a waste product from biomass (Fang et al, 2017a)
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