Engineering Carbon Materials from the Hydrothermal Carbonization Process of Biomass

Abstract

Energy shortage, environmental crisis, and developing customer demands have driven people to find facile, low-cost, environmentally friendly, and nontoxic routes to produce novel functional materials that can be commercialized in the near future. Amongst various techniques, the hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) process of biomass (either of isolated carbohydrates or crude plants) is a promising candidate for the synthesis of novel carbon-based materials with a wide variety of potential applications. In this Review, we will discuss various synthetic routes towards such novel carbon-based materials or composites via the HTC process of biomass. Furthermore, factors that influence the carbonization process will be analyzed and the special chemical/physical properties of the final products will be discussed. Despite the lack of a clear mechanism, these novel carbonaceous materials have already shown promising applications in many fields such as carbon fixation, water purification, fuel cell catalysis, energy storage, CO(2) sequestration, bioimaging, drug delivery, and gas sensors. Some of the most promising examples will also be discussed here, demonstrating that the HTC process can rationally design a rich family of carbonaceous and hybrid functional carbon materials with important applications in a sustainable fashion.

Biomass-derived renewable carbon materials for electrochemical energy storage

“…HTC has been proven to be a low-cost process that derives porous carbonaceous materials directly from biomass materials [29,75]. However, as compared to ACs, the HTC-derived carbonaceous materials exhibit less pores and low specific surface area, which is not desirable for the applications such as catalysis, adsorption or energy storage, in which controlled porosity at the nanometer scale is preferred.…”

“…HTC is, in particular, a promising method for transforming cellulose into coal-like materials, which was firstly reported by Bergius in 1913 and further developed by Berl and Schmidt [74] in 1932. Recently, HTC was used to derive various carbonaceous materials from biomass materials under mild conditions at relatively low temperature ( < 500 K) with pure water solution and self-generated pressure [25,75]. Compared with conventional physical and chemical activation processes, HTC has been recognized as an important alternative to obtain carbon materials because of its low cost, mild synthesis conditions and environmental friendliness.…”

Morphological and structural differences between glucose, cellulose and lignocellulosic biomass derived hydrothermal carbons

“…Even though this methodology was developed almost 100 years ago [9], its full potential, as a synthetic route for carbon materials having potential applications in several fields such as catalysis, energy storage, CO2 sequestration, water purification, agriculture, has been fully understood only in the last decade [10] [11]. For this reason Hydrothermal Carbonisation has been lately indicated as the leading pathway towards the so-called ''chimie douce'' of carbon materials [12].…”

Deactivation of sulfonated hydrothermal carbons in the presence of alcohols: Evidences for sulfonic esters formation

“…Sulfonated mesoporous carbon was obtained by replication of SBA-15 pores through carbonisation of sucrose, leading to highly active solids [15]. Hydrothermal carbonisation (HTC) [16] is an attractive mild method of preparation of carbons with properties different from those prepared by more conventional methods. The accessible external surface densely functionalised with polar groups, such as carboxylic, hydroxyl or quinine [17], confers them high hydrophilicity and susceptibility to chemical modification.…”