Preparation of Graphene-Like Porous Carbons With Enhanced Thermal Conductivities From Lignin Nano-particles by Combining Hydrothermal Carbonization and Pyrolysis

Abstract

Lignin nano-particles (LNPs) exhibit properties that distinguish them from the production of other lignin-based materials. However, little research has been performed to investigate whether porous carbons produced from LNPs exhibit a performance superior to those derived from untreated lignin. In this study, lignin was fabricated into LNPs and used to prepare high-performance porous carbons with enhanced thermal conductivities compared to that of carbons from neat lignin. Two different preparation protocols were employed: direct pyrolysis and hydrothermal carbonization followed by pyrolysis. Carbons obtained from 100 to 300 nm LNPs possessed more graphene-like structures than carbons from unaltered lignin. In addition, carbons prepared using a combination of hydrothermal carbonization and pyrolysis exhibited higher specific surface areas (108.81-220.75 m 2 /g) and total pore volumes (0.098-0.166 cm 3 /g) than those prepared via direct pyrolysis. In addition, LNP-derived carbons exhibited superior thermal conductivities (0.45 W/mK) and thermal conductivity rates (0.51 • C/s). This work provides the useful finding that superior graphene-like porous carbons can be produced by transforming lignin into LNP and then hydrothermally carbonizing the resulting material prior to pyrolysis.

Isolating High Antimicrobial Ability Lignin From Bamboo Kraft Lignin by Organosolv Fractionation

“…In order to understand how the structural changes of lignin linkages of kraft lignin during organosolv fractionation with different solvents, 2D-HSQC NMR spectra of all lignin samples were obtained and are shown in Figure 1 . The main lignin cross-signals ( Supplementary Table 1 ) in the spectra are assigned by aligning the signals in the reported work of Wen et al ( 2012 ), Dong et al ( 2020b ), and Pei et al ( 2020 ). The main substructures of lignin in the spectra are depicted in Figure 2 .…”

“…Now, most of the black liquor is mainly used for energy supply and alkali recovery of papermaking, resulting in the waste of lignin resources. Therefore, the high-value utilization of kraft lignin (KL) from the pulping process has garnered attention in recent years (Dong et al, 2020b ; Torres et al, 2020 ; Liu et al, 2021 ; Zhao et al, 2021 ).…”

Multifunctional Lignin-Based Composite Materials for Emerging Applications

“…Carbon materials were extensively applied in numerous fields such as energy storage and conversion, environmental applications, and catalyst (Dong et al, 2020). Generally, carbon materials are derived from petroleum-based chemicals by carbonization treatment, which is non-renewable, non-cyclable, and less environmentally friendly (Shi and Ma, 2019).…”

Valorization of Enzymatic Hydrolysis Residues from Corncob into Lignin-Containing Cellulose Nanofibrils and Lignin Nanoparticles

“…The preparation of LCNFs was confirmed by various approaches from different lignocellulose biomass including unbleached thermomechanical pulp, corn husk, and tobacco stalks, among others (Bian et al, 2017;Hu et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2018;Wen et al, 2019). In addition, lignin nanoparticles (LNPs) have gained significant interest among researchers in recent years, which will play a vital role in promoting lignin valorization (Chauhan, 2020;Dong et al, 2020a). It should be noted that EHRs contain much more lignin compared to unbleached pulp and most of lignocellulosic biomass (Huang et al, 2018), and it is expected that LCNFs with high lignin content or LNPs can be produced from EHRs.…”