It
is important to address the challenges posed with the ever-increasing
demand for energy supply and environmental sustainability. Activated
carbon, which is the common material for commercial supercapacitor
electrodes, is currently derived from petroleum-based precursors.
This paper presents an effective synthetic method that utilizes waste
tires as the precursor to prepare the activated carbon electrodes
by the pyrolysis and chemical activation processes. Adjusting the
activation parameters can tailor multiple physical properties of the
resulting activated carbon, which in turns tunes the performance of
the activated carbon electrode. Statistical multiple linear regression
and stepwise regression methods are employed to investigate the dependence
of the specific capacitance and the rate capability upon the physical
properties (such as porosity) of the activated carbon electrode. The
specific capacitance of activated carbon electrode is controlled by
the micropore volume but independent of the mesopores volume. The
rate capability is dominated by the mesopore/micropore volume ratio
instead of the absolute value of mesopore volume.
Transparent wood samples were fabricated from an environmentally-friendly hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) bleached basswood (Tilia) template using polymer impregnation. The wood samples were bleached separately for 30, 60, 90, 120 and 150 min to evaluate the effects on the changes of the chemical composition and properties of finished transparent wood. Experimental results showed decreases in cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin content with an increasing bleaching time and while decreasing each component to a unique extent. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis indicated that the wood cell micro-structures were maintained during H2O2 bleaching treatment. This allowed for successful impregnation of polymer into the bleached wood template and strong transparent wood products. The transparent wood possessed a maximum optical transmittance up to 44% at 800 nm with 150 min bleaching time. Moreover, the transparent wood displayed a maximum tensile strength up to 165.1 ± 1.5 MPa with 90 min bleaching time. The elastic modulus (Er) and hardness (H) of the transparent wood samples were lowered along with the increase of H2O2 bleaching treatment time. In addition, the transparent wood with 30 min bleaching time exhibited the highest Er and H values of 20.4 GPa and 0.45 GPa, respectively. This findings may provide one way to choose optimum degrees of H2O2 bleaching treatment for transparent wood fabrication, to fit the physicochemical properties of finished transparent wood.
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