Wood and Black Liquor-Based N-Doped Activated Carbon for Energy Application

Abstract

Fuel cells, batteries and supercapacitors are critical to meet the rising global demand for clean, sustainable energy. Biomass-derived activated carbon can be obtained with tailored properties to fulfil the extensive need for low-cost, high-performance, catalyst and electrode materials. To investigate the possibility of nanoporous nitrogen-doped carbon materials as catalysts in fuel cells and electrodes in lithium-ion batteries, biomass precursors were thermochemically activated with NaOH at 800 °C, nitrogen was introduced using dicyandiamide and doping was performed at 800 °C. The chemical composition, porous structure, texture and electrochemical properties of the obtained materials change depending on the biomass precursor used. It has been found that the most promising precursor of the obtained materials is wood char, both as an oxygen reduction catalyst in fuel cells, which shows better properties than the commercial 20% Pt/C catalyst, and as an anode material in Li-ion batteries. However, catalysts based on black liquor and hybrid material have comparable properties with commercial 20% Pt/C catalyst and can be considered as a cheaper alternative.

Black Liquor and Wood Char-Derived Nitrogen-Doped Carbon Materials for Supercapacitors

“…Supplier (Riga, Latvia) were named as NC-ABL and NC-ABL-WC, respectively. Activation (activator ratio to carbon 3 to 1, activation temperature 800 °C) and modification with nitrogen (dicyandiamide ratio to carbon 20:1, dimethyl formamide as solvent, doping temperature800 °C) are described in detail elsewhere [ 37 ]. The carbon-based materials fabrication scheme is shown in Figure 1 .…”

Bio-based Carbon Electrochemically Decorated with Cu Nanoparticles: Green Synthesis and Electrochemical Performance

“…However, these materials are generally produced from non-renewable resources through multiple steps, thereby increasing their final cost. Therefore, cost-effective carbonaceous materials derived from black liquor have been used for electromagnetic wave absorption 13,14 , as an electrocatalyst support for fuel cells 3 , for adsorption of heavy metals [15][16][17] and antibiotics 15 , in electrical systems 18 , and for energy storage 19 .…”

Hydrothermal Carbonization vs. Pyrolysis: Effect on the Porosity of the Activated Carbon Materials

“…Different solutions for the use of wood waste reduce the cost of raw materials and enrich the properties of the final products, which can be adapted to different applications. Liquid biomass pyrolysis products, such as phenolics, their derivatives, and others oligomeric compounds accessible after the removal of target chemicals, can also be used to obtain carbon materials [1,2]. For the development of largescale economically valuable productions of carbon materials, it is very important to include wood processing waste as an initial raw material.…”

“…The presence of carbohydrate and aromatic polymers in the biomass, as well as the use of residues of chemical processing of wood with a predominance of one or the other component, makes it possible to obtain carbon materials with different structures [1,30,31]. Pore size distribution and the structural ordering of carbon particles are often among the critical parameters for assessing their potential.…”

“…A composite material of both raw materials was used as the third sample: wood impregnated (1:1) with tar. We have previously shown that charcoal impregnated with black liquor, which is the lignin residue of kraft pulping, is a promising composite precursor for alkaline activation and the use of activated carbon in energy devices [1].…”