Synthesis of hierarchically porous carbon materials by zinc salts-assisted carbonization of biomass and organic solid wastes (Open Access)--颗粒学报PARTICUOLOGY

Zhang, L.-L., Tong, L., Ding, Y., Zhang, W., & Liang, H.-W. (2024). Synthesis of hierarchically porous carbon materials by zinc salts-assisted carbonization of biomass and organic solid wastes. Particuology, 84, 45-52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.partic.2023.03.002

Synthesis of hierarchically porous carbon materials by zinc salts-assisted carbonization of biomass and organic solid wastes (Open Access)

Le-Le Zhang, Lei Tong ^*, Yanwei Ding, Wanqun Zhang, Hai-Wei Liang ^*

Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

10.1016/j.partic.2023.03.002

Volume 84, January 2024, Pages 45-52

Received 6 February 2023, Revised 7 March 2023, Accepted 8 March 2023, Available online 16 March 2023, Version of Record 24 March 2023.

E-mail: ltong17@mail.ustc.edu.cn; hwliang@ustc.edu.cn

Highlights

• Hierarchically porous carbons (HPCs) are prepared by carbonizing bio-wastes with zinc salts.

• The approach is applicable to a wide variety of biomass/wastes and various zinc salts.

• HPCs exhibit high specific surface areas (2432 m² g⁻¹) and large pore volumes (4.30 cm³ g⁻¹).

• Prepared HPCs show great application potential as catalyst supports for fuel cells.

Abstract

Hierarchically porous carbons (HPCs) with multimodal pores have attracted considerable attention due to their unique physical and chemical properties and various application potentials in heterogeneous catalysis, environmental treatment, and energy storage and conversion. Herein, we report a general and simple zinc salts-assisted method for the synthesis of HPCs with varied porosity and chemical functionalities by the direct carbonization of diverse biomass and wastes. During the carbonization, zinc salts are thermally decomposed into nanoparticles that serve as in-situ templates to introduce nanopores in carbons. The prepared HPCs exhibit high specific surface areas (up to 2432 m² g⁻¹), large pore volumes (up to 4.30 cm³ g⁻¹), and broad pore size distributions. Moreover, the zinc salts can be recovered and recycled, supporting the sustainable production of HPCs on large scale. The prepared HPCs-supported catalysts with atomically dispersed metal sites exhibit promising electrocatalytic performance for the oxygen reduction reaction.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Hierarchical porous carbon; Zinc salts; Biomass; Wastes; Electrocatalysis

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