Biomass-derived Porous Carbon Materials Research Articles

Exploring Carbonization Temperature to Create Closed Pores for Hard Carbon as High-Performance Sodium-Ion Battery Anodes.

Biomass-derived porous carbon materials are meaningful to employ as a hard carbon precursor for anode materials of sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) from a sustainability perspective. Here, a straightforward approach is proposed to develop rich closed pores in pinenut-derived carbon, with the aim of improving Na+ plateau storage by adjusting the pyrolysis temperature. The optimized sample, namely the pinenut-derived carbon at 1300 °C, demonstrates remarkable reversible specific capacity of 278 mAh g-1, along with a high initial Coulomb efficiency of 85% and robust cycling stability (with a capacity retention of 89% after 800 cycles at 0.2 A g-1). In situ and ex situ analyses unveil that the developed closed pores play a significant role in enhancing the plateau capacity, providing compelling evidence for the "adsorption-filling" mechanism. Moreover, the corresponding full-cell achieves a high energy density of 245.7Wh kg-1 (based on the total weight of both electrode active materials) and exhibits outstanding rate capability (191.4 mAh g-1 at 3 A g-1).

Recent Advances in Biomass-derived Porous Carbon Materials: Synthesis, Composition and Applications

Recent Advances in Biomass-derived Porous Carbon Materials: Synthesis, Composition and Applications

Polyacrylonitrile-sodium lignosulfonate -derived nitrogen-doped three-dimensional hierarchical porous carbon for supercapacitors

Modulation of pore structure and heteroatom doping are very important strategies to improve the electrochemical properties of carbon electrode materials. This report investigates the use of biomass-derived nitrogen-doped porous carbon materials to address the challenge of the specific capacitance and energy density in supercapacitors. Nitrogen-doped three-dimensional hierarchical porous carbon materials were prepared using a polyacrylonitrile/sodium lignosulfonate composite monolith as a precursor by thermally induced phase separation and subsequent carbonization/activation. This method precisely controls the structure and surface properties of porous carbon materials by regulating the structure of the precursor and situ doping of nitrogen, which is a valuable strategy for the controllable regulation of the pore structure for nitrogen-doped porous carbon materials. The resulting carbon material displayed excellent capacitance performance, exhibiting a high specific capacitance of 325.7F g -1 at a current density of 0.5 A/g, maintaining initial capacitance retention of 90.1 % at a current density of 5 A/g after 10,000 cycles. When investigated for practical applications, the assembled supercapacitor device had a higher energy density (9.88 W h kg- 1), which is higher than commercial carbon-based supercapacitors.

Synthesis and electrochemical performance of biomass-derived porous carbon materials for supercapacitors

Synthesis and electrochemical performance of biomass-derived porous carbon materials for supercapacitors

N-doped defect-rich porous carbon nanosheets framework from renewable biomass as efficient metal-free bifunctional electrocatalysts for HER and OER application

In response to the demand for clean, renewable energy sources and storage technologies, innovative materials and combinations have been developed at reasonable prices as effective electrode materials. Current research and development of carbon-based metal-free catalysts have opened up new research areas for bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall water splitting. Herein, we developed N-self-doped defect-rich porous carbon nanosheets derived from platycladus orientalis tree-cone biomass for overall water splitting. The developed N-self-doped defect-rich porous carbon nanosheets have large surface areas (3369 m2/g), high pore volumes (2.1 cm3 g−1), and high electrical conductivities (12.69 S/cm). N-self-doped defect-rich porous carbon nanosheet framework was employed in water splitting as a dual function in hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Electrodes fabricated from the KOH-II ABC nanosheets show excellent OER and HER performances in the 0.5 M H2SO4 solution. The current density of 10 mA cm−2 is reached at a low overpotential of 90 mV for OER and 188 mV for HER. In addition, KOH-II ABC nanosheets also show a remarkable performance on overall water splitting, which only required a cell voltage of 1.49 V to reach current densities of 10 mA cm−2 in 0.5 M H2SO4 solution. The presence of defects in the carbon nanosheets, higher specific surface area, excellent electrochemical active surface area and N doping effectively enhance the reaction kinetics for attaining efficient OER and HER performances. This facile approach to preparing biomass-derived N-doped defect-rich porous carbon materials empowers next-generation green fuel conversion technologies for carbon neutrality.

Regulating N-doping strategies to construct 3D interconnected abundant porous N-doped carbon for polarization loss-enhanced microwave absorbers: Theory, design, and experiments

The widespread proliferation of modern portable electronic devices has necessitated the development of functional materials with high-efficiency microwave absorption properties. In this study, we utilized biomass-derived jujube shells as a carbon source and employed a nitrogen-doping process to modify carbon materials, resulting in the fabrication of outstanding microwave-absorbing biomass-based nitrogen-doped porous carbon. Additionally, we discussed the influence of different nitrogen sources on material structure and microwave absorption performance. These N-doped porous carbon materials exhibited excellent specific surface areas, particularly Org-N, which facilitated the formation of conductive networks and the multi-stage reflection and scattering of microwave. Moreover, N-doping created numerous defect sites and heterogeneous structures, improving impedance matching, thus promoting dipole polarization and interface polarization effects, which accelerated electron migration and interlayer hopping, contributing to the attenuation of microwave energy. The lowest reflection loss for Org-N, Inorg-N, and Mixed-N reached −27.3 dB, −40.9 dB, and −45.6 dB, respectively. Mixed-N exhibited optimal microwave absorption performance at 9.9 GHz with d = 2.4 mm and achieved an effective absorption bandwidth (EAB10) of 3.0 GHz (11.0 GHz–14.0 GHz) at d = 2.0 mm. Additionally, the enhancement of polarization relaxation effects was elucidated by examining the charge density distribution in molecular models featuring various N-doping forms. Consequently, biomass-derived N-doped porous carbon materials emerge as lightweight and highly efficient functional materials for microwave absorption purposes.

Unsymmetric design of self-supported sheet electrode: Breaking the tradeoff between electrical conduction and surface wetting for fast energy storage and excellent cycling stability

Biomass-derived porous carbon materials are suitable candidates for energy storage due to their rich pore structure, high specific area, and tunable surface functionality. Carbon electrodes are often required to have both excellent conductivity and wettability, while one needs to be compromised for optimized outcomes. Herein, we constructed a self-supported Carbonized Wood@Graphene Nanosheets (CW@GNs) composite electrode by growing GNs on one side of the CW surface with a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition technology. Both electrical conductivity and interfacial wettability can be obtained simultaneously in CW@GNs electrodes. The CW@GNs-1h showed a satisfactory specific capacitance of 210.2F g−1, while the value of pure CW was 177.2F g−1. Furthermore, a symmetrical supercapacitor assembled with two CW@GNs-1h monoliths performed an excellent energy density of 7.8 Wh kg−1 at 250.8 W kg−1, retaining attractive cycling stability (99.02%) after 50,000 cycles. These results demonstrated the effectiveness of the unsymmetric design in a double-sided sheet electrode that breakthrough the tradeoff of electrical conductivity and surface wettability, and thus enhanced energy storage capacity and cycling stability were achieved.

Improving the adsorption performance of non-polar benzene vapor by using lignin-based activated carbon.

Both indoor and outdoor contamination continually contain benzene vapor. It has primary concerns about long-term health risks to the living environment. Benzene is a crucial airborne pollutant in the environment due to its apparent acute toxicity, high volatility, and poor degradability. It is especially urgent to restrain benzene emissions due to the persistent concentration increase and stringent processes. Benzene adsorption is a highly efficient mechanism with low cost, low energy consumption, and a simple process. In this study, biomass-derived porous carbon materials (TCACs) were synthesized by pyrolysis activation combined with H3PO4, HNO3, and HCl. TCAC44 has the best activation conclusion, showing that surface area and pore volume were 1107 m2/g and 0.58 cm3/g treated with H3PO4 and so was chosen for subsequent benzene adsorption/desorption tests. The adsorption capacities of benzene for TCAC44 were increased from 58 mg/g for 35 °C + 95% RH to 121 mg/g for 25 °C + 15% RH and presented a higher adsorption capacity of benzene than TCAC101 and TCAC133. Otherwise, well recyclability of TCAC44 was revealed as the benzene adsorption capacity reductions were 22.49% after five adsorption-desorption cycles. Furthermore, the present study established the property-application relationships to promote and encourage future research on the newly synthesized innovative TCAC44 for benzene removal.

Bimetallic nanocubes embedded in biomass-derived porous carbon to construct magnetic/carbon dual-mechanism layered structures for efficient microwave absorption

Biomass-derived porous carbon materials have great potential for the development of lightweight and efficient broadband microwave absorbers. In this study, we reported the successful immobilization of Co3O4/CoFe2O4 nanocubes on porous carbon derived from ginkgo biloba shells by activated carbonization and electrostatic self-assembly processes. The optimal reflection loss value of the prepared BPC@Co3O4/CoFe2O4 reaches −68.5 dB when the filling load is 10 wt%, and the effective absorption bandwidth is 6.2 GHz with a matching thickness of 2 mm. The excellent microwave absorption (MA) performance is attributed to the rational three-dimensional structural design, the modulation of magnetic/carbon components, the optimized impedance matching, and the coordinated action of multiple mechanisms. It was further demonstrated by high-frequency structural simulation that the composite can effectively dissipate microwave energy in practical applications. Therefore, the results indicate a favorable potential of the synthesis and application of semiconductor/magnetic component/biomass-derived carbon microwave absorbing materials.

Bimetallic sulfides embedded into porous carbon composites with tunable magneto-dielectric properties for lightweight biomass- reinforced microwave absorber

Currently, biomass-derived porous carbon materials have great potential for the development of advanced microwave absorbing materials (MAMs) with lightweight, high performance, wide effective bandwidth (EAB), and thin matching thickness. Herein, we reported low-cost, high-performance MAMs for the successful anchoring of Cu-based bimetallic sulfides CuCo2S4@CoS2 on biomass porous carbon (BPC) derived from pistachio shells using a simple carbonization, hydrothermal, and electrostatic self-assembly method. The results demonstrate that the prepared BPC@CuCo2S4@CoS2 composite exhibits excellent microwave absorption due to its balanced impedance matching and the combined effect of conductive loss, dipole polarization, interfacial polarization, dielectric loss, and magnetic loss. To be precise, the minimum reflection loss (RLmin) of BPC@CuCo2S4@CoS2 reaches −64.2 dB at a packing load of 20 wt%, with an EAB of 6.6 GHz and a thickness of 2.3 mm. This work provides new insights into the study of copper-based bimetallic sulfide and BPC composites in MAMs.

Controlling the growth of ZnNiMoSx on biomass-derived porous carbon materials for deep hydrodesulfurization

Controlling the growth of small-sized catalysts with more accessible active sites and low cost is of great significance to promote their hydrodesulfurization (HDS) performance. Herein, we have synthesized an efficient ZnNiMoSx/C composite catalyst by using biomass-derived porous carbon as the support. With ZnCl2 to regulate porous structure, the obtained carbon support presents an enhanced specific surface area (1581.1 m2/g), which promotes the dispersion of ZnNiMoSx catalysts. The ZnNiMoSx on ZnNiMoSx/C-3 shows fewer layers (2–4 layers) and shorter length (about 4–5 nm), indicating more corner and edge active sites. Besides, the addition of Zn species improves the sulfurization degree of ZnNiMoSx and provides more sulfur vacancies for the enhanced HDS performance. The synthesized ZnNiMoSx/C-3 catalyst shows the kHDS value of dibenzothiophene to be 39.42 × 10−7 mol/(g s) and the direct desulfurization selectivity up to 94.5 %. This study provides a new thought for the development of HDS catalysts with cheap biomass-derived materials.

Inorganic Skeleton Reinforcement-A Generic Approach to Improve the Mechanical Properties of Biochar.

Biochar is considered as a promising candidate for emerging sustainable energy systems and environmental technology applications. However, the improvement of mechanical properties remains challenges. Herein, we propose a generic strategy to enhance the mechanical properties of bio-based carbon materials through inorganic skeleton reinforcement. As a proof-of-concept, silane, geopolymer, and inorganic gel are selected as precursors. The composites' structures are characterized and an inorganic skeleton reinforcement mechanism is elucidated. Specifically, two types of reinforcement of the silicon-oxygen skeleton network formed in situ with biomass pyrolysis and the silica-oxy-al-oxy network are constructed to improve the mechanical properties. A significant improvement in mechanical strength was achieved for bio-based carbon materials. The compressive strength of well-balanced porous carbon materials modified by silane can reach up to 88.9 kPa, geopolymer-modified carbon material exhibits an enhanced compressive strength of 36.8 kPa, and that of inorganic-gel-polymer-modified carbon material is 124.6 kPa. Moreover, the prepared carbon materials with enhanced mechanical properties show excellent adsorption performance and high reusability for organic pollutant model compound methylene blue dye. This work demonstrates a promising and universal strategy for enhancing the mechanical properties of biomass-derived porous carbon materials.

Research Progress on the Application of Biomass-Based Porous Carbon Materials in Lithium Battery Electrode

With the growth of the world population, limited non-renewable energy sources, oil and coal mine are becoming increasingly exhausted. The long-term consumption of fossil energy not only causes an energy crisis, but also makes ecological and environmental problems more significant. Therefore, lithium batteries, as an energy storage tool, have been studied by a number of researchers due to their advantages such as high specific energy, little environmental pollution and long cycle life. For secondary batteries, the performance of electrode materials affects the development of batteries. Biomass-derived porous carbon materials have the advantages of cheap, easy-to-obtain from raw materials, large specific surface area, many pore structures, strong electrical conductivity, adjustable pore structure, and have been widely concerned in recent years and used as electrode materials for energy storage lithium batteries application. In the process of charging and discharging lithium batteries, porous carbon materials can provide more space for lithium ions to be embedded and removed from the electrode, improving the capacity and thus the efficiency of the battery. In this paper, the main preparation technology of biomass-derived carbon materials and the improvement technology of heteroatom doping are reviewed. The application effects of different activation methods on the porous carbon materials prepared by plant materials in the negative electrode of lithium battery are compared, and the performance of the materials in practical application is evaluated in the paper, which provides reference materials for the beginners of using biomass structure to prepare porous carbon materials.

Visualizing sub-layer structural transformation in carbonized wood tracheid by Raman mapping

Characterizing the pore structure evolution of biomass-derived carbon during processing and exploring the relationship between the porous carbon structure and the intrinsic micro-structure of biomass precursor are of great importance to advance the knowledge of pore creation/evolution mechanism and manufacture demanded pore structures by controlled processing. So far, the manipulation of pore structure still heavily relies on trial-and-error approach due to the lack understanding of the relationship between precursor structure/composition and the pore evolution during processing. In this work, the micro-structural evolution across the multi-layered wood tracheid in carbonization and oxidation processes was revealed by Raman mapping which can provide a unique insight into the pore structure evolution of carbon materials. The different degrees of graphitization enable the differentiation of carbonized forms of lignin and cellulose by Raman mapping and thus quantify the changes of both species during carbonization and oxidation. It is revealed that micropore formation is more related to the degradation of lignin and mesopore formation is closely associated with cellulose. The diffusion of reactive gas through the multi-layered wood tracheid and the corresponding reactions occurred along the diffusion path create the comprehensive porous channels. This work provides a new and convenient method to get a comprehensive understanding of biomass structure/composition in related to the pore structure evolution and allows a more specific regulation of pore structure in biomass-derived porous carbon materials.

Customizing the structure and chemical composition of ultralight carbon foams for superior microwave absorption performance

Developing biomass-derived three-dimensional porous carbon materials (porous carbon foam, PCF) has become a common strategy to obtain lightweight and efficient electromagnetic microwave-absorbing materials. Without the introduction of a template and subsequent activation process, several ultra-lightweight honeycomb PCF samples were successfully prepared from dried ballonflower/yamakurage (DB) by simple calcination. In addition, the calcination temperature plays a decisive role in regulating the pore size, composition and microwave absorption properties of PCF samples. Furthermore, it is worth noting that different cutting directions also influenced the hole size of the PCF sample and the microwave absorption performances. Under the combined effects of multiple reflections and scattering of PCF porous structure, dipole polarization of abundant heterogeneous atoms and good conductive loss of carbon material, the vertical cutting sample PCF-900V exhibits optimal microwave absorption performances with the minimal reflection loss (RLmin) value of −46.95 dB at 1.46 mm thickness and the effective absorption bandwidth (EAB) value of 5.52 GHz at 1.72 mm matching thickness respectively, indicating its great potential for application as a promising lightweight and efficient microwave absorbing material.

Porous Carbon Sponge from White-Rot Fungus Phanerochaete chrysosporium for the Removal of Oils and Organic Solvents.

Oil leakage incidentally occurs and leads to environmental disasters. Because of their porous and hydrophobic characteristics, graphene sponges are often studied as an oil adsorbent to repair oil spills at sea. Graphene materials are very expensive, and their biological toxicity has been given serious concerns; however, the easier preparation and eco-friendly, biomass-derived porous carbon materials can be used as an alternative to graphene materials. In this study, we prepared a porous carbon sponge (PCS) for oil and organic solvent removal by carbonizing white-rot fungus Phanerochaete chrysosporium, a fast-growing microorganism for the production of lignin-degrading enzymes and the environmental remediation. P. chrysosporium fungus balls were converted into black PCS by carbonization at high temperatures, where PCS was light (density of 56 g/L), hydrophobic (contact angle of 115°) and porous. According to the results of BET and XPS analysis, the surface area of PCS was 14.43 m2/g, and the carbon in PCS is mainly sp2 carbon. PCS could adsorb pure oils and organic solvents within seconds. The adsorption capacities of PCS were 20.7 g/g for gasoline, 30.1 g/g for peanut oil, 27.7 g/g for toluene, 18.5 g/g for dodecane, 32.5 g/g for chloroform, 27.1 g/g for tetrahydrofuran, 23.7 g/g for acetone and 13.7 g/g for ethanol. According to the reusability study, there was no obvious capacity loss after recycling up to 10 cycles. Our results indicated that white-rot fungi could be adopted as a cheap carbon resource for oil and organic solvent removal.

Adsorption of multicomponent VOCs on various biomass-derived hierarchical porous carbon: A study on adsorption mechanism and competitive effect

Biomass-derived porous carbon materials are potential adsorbents for VOCs. In this work, biomass-derived nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbons (NHPCs) were synthesized by a one-step pyrolysis activation combined with nitrogen doping method from several biomass wastes (corn straw, wheat stalk, bamboo, pine, and corncob). NHPCs have a hierarchical porous structure with micro-meso-macropores distribution, nitrogen doping, large specific surface area, and pore volume. The corncob derived carbon (NHPC-CC) has the best activation result as analyses showed that a lower ash content and higher total cellulose composition content of the biomass result in a better pore activation effect. Single and multi-component dynamic adsorption tests of typical VOCs (benzene, toluene, and chlorobenzene) were conducted on NHPCs in laboratory conditions (∼500 ppm). Promising VOC adsorption capacity and great adsorption kinetics with low mass transfer resistance were found on NHPCs. Correlation analysis showed that the high VOC adsorption capacity and great adsorption kinetics can be attributed to the large surface area of micro-mesopores and the mass transfer channels provided by meso-macropores respectively. The competitive dynamic adsorption tests revealed that the VOC with lower saturated vapor pressure has more adsorption sites on the surface of micro-mesopores and stronger adsorption force, which results in the higher adsorption capacity and desorption caused by substitution reaction in VOCs competitive adsorption process. In detail, the process of toluene and chlorobenzene competitive adsorption was described. Besides, well recyclability of NHPC-CC was revealed as the VOCs adsorption capacity reductions were less than 10% after four adsorption-desorption cycles. All studies showed that the NHPC-CC could be potential adsorbent for VOCs in industrial process.

Structurally Controllable Hay-Slag-Based Porous Carbons for Supercapacitor and CO2 Adsorption Applications

Biomass-derived porous carbon materials were selectively and controllably prepared by carbonization of hay slag (HS) and activation with ZnCl2 combined with Mg(NO[Formula: see text]H2O. The prepared porous carbon materials had an apparent multi-pore structure and a large specific surface area. In a 6[Formula: see text]mol/L KOH with a current density of 0.25[Formula: see text]A/g, the specific capacitance of the prepared sample was 220[Formula: see text]F/g. Further study showed that the optimal pore size range of porous carbon materials for electrode preparation was 0.8–1.2[Formula: see text]nm. At the same time, the porous carbon material had a good adsorption capacity for CO2, and the adsorbent performance was 3.09[Formula: see text]mmol/g at 0∘C and 1 bar. Adsorbents with the pore size range of 0.5–0.8[Formula: see text]nm had the best CO2 adsorption performance. This integrated strategy study expanded biomass-derived porous carbon materials with controllable pore structures to match different application strategies.

Biomass-Derived Porous Carbon Materials for Li-Ion Battery.

Biomass-based carbon nanofibers (CNF) were synthesized using lignin extracted from sawdust and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) (30:70) with the help of the electrospinning method and subsequent stabilization at 220 °C and carbonization at 800, 900, and 1000 °C. The synthesized CNFs were studied by scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, Raman spectroscopy, and the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller method. The temperature effect shows that CNF carbonized at 800 °C has excellent stability at different current densities and high capacitance. CNF 800 in the first test cycle at a current density of 100 mA/g shows an initial capacity of 798 mAh/g and an initial coulomb efficiency of 69.5%. The CNF 900 and 1000 show an initial capacity of 668 mAh/g and 594 mAh/g, and an initial Coulomb efficiency of 52% and 51%. With a long cycle (for 500 cycles), all three samples at a current density of 500 mA/g show stable cycling in different capacities (CNF 800 in the region of 300–400 mAh/g, CNF 900 and 1000 in the region of 100–200 mAh/g).

Sterculia lychnophora seed-derived porous carbon@CoFe2O4 composites with efficient microwave absorption performance

Recently, biomass-derived porous carbon materials demonstrate great potential to develop high-efficient microwave absorbers. Herein, magnetic porous composites consisting of CoFe2O4 nanoparticles and biomass-derived carbon from sterculia lychnophora seeds are prepared via hydrothermal and pyrolysis methods. The dielectric and magnetic properties of composites are modulated by tuning the content of CoFe2O4 nanoparticles to optimize impedance matching characteristics and improve attenuation capabilities. Benefitting from multicomponent compositions and porous structures, the optimized composite exhibits superior microwave absorption performance with the minimum reflection loss value of −67.04 dB at 2.0 mm and an effective absorption bandwidth of 5.52 GHz (11.92–17.44 GHz) at the filler loading of 20 wt%. Besides, the composite achieves strong microwave absorption in multiband (3.92–18 GHz) by adjusting matching thickness. The outstanding microwave absorption properties of magnetic porous composites are attributed to the synergistic effect of interfacial polarization, dipolar polarization, conductive loss, magnetic loss, multiple reflection and scattering of incident microwaves. This work could provide references for the advanced development of biomass-derived porous microwave absorbers.