Innovative Biochar-Based Composite Fibres from Recycled Material

Abstract

Carbon materials are becoming crucial in several industrial sectors. The drawbacks of these materials include their high cost and oil-based essence. In recent years, recycled materials have become possible alternative sources of carbon with several advantages. Firstly, the production of this alternative source of carbon may help to reduce biomass disposal, and secondly, it contributes to CO2 sequestration. The use of carbon derived from recycled materials by a pyrolysis treatment is called biochar. Here, we present composite materials based on different biochar filler contents dispersed in several thermoplastic polymer matrixes. Electrical conductivity and tensile break strength were investigated together with the material characterisation by DTA/TGA, XRD, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging. Materials with good flexibility and electrical conductivity were obtained. The local ordering in composites resembles both biochar and polymer ordering. The similarity between biochar and carbon nanotubes’ (CNTs) XRD patterns may be observed. As biochar is highly cost-effective, the proposed composites could become a valid substitute for CNT composites in various applications.

Pressure-Responsive Conductive Poly(vinyl alcohol) Composites Containing Waste Cotton Fibers Biochar

“…As shown in Figure 4 b, the normalized conductivity shows very close trends for each curve, suggesting that the absolute value trends were mainly due to the amount of filler. The higher values of conductivity observed here, compared with previous work based on biochar produced in the same conditions, were reasonably due to both the favorable aspect ratio displayed by the deformed cylindrical morphologies [22,31,44].…”

Effect of Red Mud Addition on Electrical and Magnetic Properties of Hemp-Derived-Biochar-Containing Epoxy Composites

“…BC is the solid product of the pyrolytic conversion of biomass, representing a highly-tunable carbon source for material science applications [ 8 ]. Recently, BC has been successfully used to produce thermoset [ 9 , 10 ] and thermoplastic composites [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ] with appreciable microwave (MW) absorption properties. As reported by Torsello et al [ 15 ], the electrical properties of BC-containing composites are strongly correlated with the temperature used for BC production.…”

Unraveling the Biochar Potential as Filler for Composites Preparation

“…[25,26] Biochar has found new applications in the production of pressure responsive composites based on several thermoplastic matrix ranging from poly(propylene) [27] to poly(vinyl alcohol). [15,28] These promising results allowed to assemble a pressure responsive device based on biochar containing composites as the one show in Figure 7.…”