Porous Carbon Materials from Sustainable Precursors

452 Pages·2015·12.948 MB·English

by  Robin J. White

Porous Carbon Materials from Sustainable Precursors
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RSC Green Chemistry
Editor-in-Chief:
Professor James Clark, Department of Chemistry, University of York, UK
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FP Series Editors:
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7 Professor George A Kraus, Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University, Ames,
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2 Iowa, USA
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8 Professor Andrzej Stankiewicz, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
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8 Professor Peter Siedl, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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9/ Professor Yuan Kou, Peking University, China
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1 Titles in the Series:
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d 1: The Future of Glycerol: New Uses of a Versatile Raw Material
org | 2: Alternative Solvents for Green Chemistry
sc. 3: Eco-Friendly Synthesis of Fine Chemicals
bs.r 4: Sustainable Solutions for Modern Economies
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p:// 5: Chemical Reactions and Processes under Flow Conditions
htt 6: Radical Reactions in Aqueous Media
on 7: Aqueous Microwave Chemistry
n . 015 8: The Future of Glycerol: 2nd Edition
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d y 9: Transportation Biofuels: Novel Pathways for the Production of Ethanol,
dear
au Biogas and Biodiesel
wnloFebr 10: Alternatives to Conventional Food Processing
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D1 11: Green Trends in Insect Control
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d o 12: A Handbook of Applied Biopolymer Technology: Synthesis, Degradation
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h and Applications
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bli 13: Challenges in Green Analytical Chemistry
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14: Advanced Oil Crop Biorefineries
15: Enantioselective Homogeneous Supported Catalysis
16: Natural Polymers Volume 1: Composites
17: Natural Polymers Volume 2: Nanocomposites
18: Integrated Forest Biorefineries
19: Sustainable Preparation of Metal Nanoparticles: Methods and
Applications
20: Alternative Solvents for Green Chemistry: 2nd Edition
21: Natural Product Extraction: Principles and Applications
22: Element Recovery and Sustainability
23: Green Materials for Sustainable Water Remediation and Treatment
24: The Economic Utilisation of Food Co-Products
25: Biomass for Sustainable Applications: Pollution Remediation and
Energy
26: From C-H to C-C Bonds: Cross-Dehydrogenative-Coupling
27: Renewable Resources for Biorefineries
28: Transition Metal Catalysis in Aerobic Alcohol Oxidation
29: Green Materials from Plant Oils
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30: Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) Based Blends, Composites and
Nanocomposites
31: Ball Milling Towards Green Synthesis: Applications, Projects,
Challenges
1 32: Porous Carbon Materials from Sustainable Precursors
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Porous Carbon Materials from
Sustainable Precursors
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2 Edited by
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9 Robin J White
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03 Universität Freiburg, FMF - Freiburger Materialforschungszentrum,
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0. Freiburg im Breisgau and Institut für Anorganische und Analytische Chemie,
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oi: Freiburg, Germany
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or RSC Green Chemistry No. 32
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s.r Print ISBN: 978-1-84973-832-3
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http:// ISSN: 1757-7039
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n . 015 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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d y © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2015
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n Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of research for non-commercial purposes or for
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d private study, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
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blis Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003, this publication may not
Pu be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of The Royal Society of Chemistry or the copyright owner, or in the
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at the address printed on this page.
The RSC is not responsible for individual opinions expressed in this work.
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Published by The Royal Society of Chemistry,
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27 Preface
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1 We currently live in the era of the Anthropocene – the time period where the
doi: actions and consequences of human society and practices are the predomi-
org | nant geological, environmental and climate driving forces. As a consequence,
sc. the terms “sustainable” and “sustainability” are increasingly becoming com-
bs.r mon terms in the chemical industry and sociopolitical discussions as we
u
p://p look to a future beyond unsustainable fossil-based resources. These terms,
htt at least in the public domain, are typically associated with the agricultural
on industry but also with ever-increasing exposure in the context of energy, fuel
n . 015 and consumer product provision. This latter point relates to societies depen-
o2
d y dence on fossil-fuel-derived products (e.g. gasoline, plastics, etc.) and their
adeuar ever-dwindling reserves. Therefore, human society is looking to the devel-
nloebr opment of innovative and “green” technologies to address the challenge of
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Do11 providing for an ever-increasing population. This must be approached with-
n
o out reducing the capability of future generations to live in the manner in
d
he which the western world is accustomed and allow the developing world to
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bli achieve the same standards. Underpinning a “sustainable” society will the
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development of innovative materials ideally based on abundant precursors/
elements, synthesised in a “green” manner, providing the necessary applica-
tion behaviour suitable to provide sustainable energy, chemicals and prod-
ucts for society.
Perhaps one of, if not the most, important elements of the sustainable
challenge, is carbon. In the context of our existing and hopefully a future
sustainable society, carbon will be present in many forms. For example, CO
2
is the major product of the combustion of carbon-based fossil fuels that is
driving the greenhouse effect and associated changes in the global climate.
In a closed cycle, CO could be taken up by photosynthetic organisms (e.g.
2
green plants) and converted to solid sinks of carbon (e.g. biomass) ultimately
transforming back into the fossil deposits that underpin our current society.
RSC Green Chemistry No. 32
Porous Carbon Materials from Sustainable Precursors
Edited by Robin J White
© The Royal Society of Chemistry 2015
Published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, www.rsc.org
vii
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viii Preface
However, the latter process unfortunately occurs on a time scale that is not
relevant to human society, with consumption occurring at a rate resulting
in the near exploitation of reserves by the end of the current century. There-
fore, new cyclical, carbon-neutral energy and chemical provision schemes
7 are needed to allow the establishment of a sustainable society. As will be
0
0
P briefly introduced in this book, alternative schemes such as the Biorefinery
F
77- and Methanol Economy have been proposed and aspects of each scheme are
2
22 gradually entering the energy, fuel and chemical market place. Notably, both
6
782 these alternative future economies rely on CO2 and its natural derivatives (e.g.
81 biomass). Furthermore, as for existing industrial practices, these new econ-
7
9/9 omies will require the development of increasingly efficient, active materials
03 to perform the conversion, catalysis and separation processes needed to syn-
1
0. thesize and produce the myriad of (e.g. carbon-based) products that modern
1
oi: society demands.
d
g | The establishment of a sustainable society represents one of the greatest
or
c. challenges facing human kind and will require the transition from an essen-
s
s.r tially resource consumptive economy to a new sustainable, carbon-neutral
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p (and even carbon-negative) approach based on renewable resources to deliver
p:// the material, chemical and energy demands of a modern sustainable soci-
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n ety. To establish sustainable chemical, energy and fuel provision, the devel-
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n . 015 opment and ultimately implementation of innovative sustainable chemical
d oy 2 practices is required. With regard to current energy and chemical provision,
dear fossil-based industries (e.g. petrorefineries, coal-fired power stations, etc.) still
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nloebr dominate, although their viability will dwindle over the coming century. To
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o1 counteract this reduction, future energy/chemical supply from renewable
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on energies (e.g. solar, water, wind, etc.) will dramatically increase over the same
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e time frame. This in itself creates challenges regarding cost-efficient energy
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bli storage and transportation. In this regard, there are several options by which
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geothermal or biomass sources. These solutions will all be reliant on porous
materials technologies to allow for their efficient implementation and conver-
sion and storage of photonic, thermal or kinetic energy into suitable chemical
energy-vector molecules. The materials developed to address this task should
be low cost, scalable, industrially and economically attractive, based on renew-
able and highly abundant resources, whilst of course achieving application
performances that exceed the performance of existing technologies.
In this regard, new porous materials (e.g. catalysts, separation media, etc.)
with improved properties relative to the current state of the art are required,
synthesised with as minimal a carbon footprint as possible. If these synthetic
approaches can be based on sustainable resources (e.g. biomass), abundant
elements (e.g. C, N, P, etc.) and sustainable synthetic techniques, this has the
potential to aid the overall “C” balance in the material or chemical synthesis
pathway. This book aims to demonstrate how this might be possible via a
number of emerging approaches, predominantly focusing on carbon-based
materials. Furthermore, from a materials-chemistry perspective, sustainable
biomass precursors appear to be excellence platform compounds from which
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Preface ix
to synthesise a variety of carbon-based materials, particularly when one con-
siders the range of naturally occurring nanostructures and also the range
of opportunities that molecules including the saccharides, polysaccharides,
nucleotides, and proteins offer, (e.g. in terms of functionality, self-assembly
7 properties, etc.). It is in this context that this book draws its inspiration.
0
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P The natural products of CO capture and recycling, namely biomass,
F 2
77- as this book will highlight, can be transformed into useful, applicable,
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22 carbon-based porous materials. It is also important to highlight the signif-
6
82 icance of porous materials in both current energy and chemical provisions
7
81 (e.g. the petrorefinery) and the aforementioned alternative future provi-
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9/9 sions schemes. In the context of sustainable precursors and specifically
03 biomass-derived compounds, their direct conversion into carbon-based
1
0. materials typically requires high temperatures and/or activation agents,
1
oi: resulting in the production of either nonporous or predominantly micro-
d
g | porous, hydrophobic materials. As an example, such materials may not be
or
c. suitable for the aqueous phase catalysis required in the Biorefinery, although
s
s.r they may find application in gas-separations challenges of the Methanol
b
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p Economy. Therefore, there is a need to develop new synthetic practices with
p:// regard porous carbon materials that enable control over physicochemis-
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n try (e.g. surface functionality, conductivity, hydrophobicity, etc.) in tandem
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n . 015 with material texture and porosity (e.g. micro- vs. mesoporosity, hierarchical
d oy 2 structuring, particle morphology, etc.). The following chapters will introduce
dear to the reader solutions to this problem based on the use of sustainable pre-
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o1 with properties that have the potential to fill the “gap” between classical inor-
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on ganic and organic materials (e.g. mesoporous silica vs. microporous carbon).
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e The book introduces approaches to this end using sustainable, predomi-
h
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bli nantly biomass-derived precursors, with a particular focus on the two lead-
Pu ing synthetic approaches; namely Starbon® technology and hydrothermal
carbonisation (HTC). The book features contributions from a global collec-
tive of up and coming young scientists revealing the wide range of materials
and applications that are possible using the aforementioned synthetic plat-
forms and derivations therefrom. The book starts with an introduction from
the Editor, providing a context for the following chapters with regards to the
demands of future energy and chemical provision schemes, whilst high-
lighting the material demands of these cyclical economies. Part 1 provides
contributions on the topic of Starbon® technology, developed and elaborated
predominantly at the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence, University of
York, (York, UK), demonstrating the exciting porous properties of these poly-
saccharide-derived materials, with promising application in aqueous-phase
heterogeneous catalysis (e.g. esterification of succinic acid) and separations
science (e.g. separation of polar sugar analytes). Part 2 covers the topic of
hydrothermal carbonisation as a platform for the conversion of biomass to
porous carbonaceous materials, a topic initially reinvigorated by researchers
from the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces, (Golm, Germany),
which has now proliferated, as reflected by the authors assembled, to the
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x Preface
different corners of the scientific globe. Hydrothermal carbon materials are
discussed in the context of porosity development (e.g. templating, gelation,
etc.) and functionality control (e.g. heteroatom doping), with the resulting
materials discussed in the context of applications in heterogeneous catalysis,
7 electrochemistry (e.g. battery electrodes, metal-free oxygen-reduction reac-
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P tion, etc.) and gas sorption (e.g. CO capture). Part 3 introduces and discusses
F 2
77- the challenges and analytical techniques associated with the development
2
22 and characterisation of the innovative porous carbon materials discussed
6
82 in Parts 1 and 2 (e.g. gas sorption, microscopy, etc.). Finally, the book con-
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81 cludes in Part 4, with a brief review of more recent, emerging platforms for
7
9/9 the synthesis of porous carbons from sustainable precursors that are still
03 in their infancy (at the time of writing). Part 4 also provides an overview of
1
0. the commercial efforts underway to bring porous carbon materials sustain-
1
oi: ably from the laboratory curiosity to industrial-scale products (e.g. Starbon®
d
g | Technologies).
or
c. This book is aimed at a broad readership, encompassing advanced under-
s
s.r graduates, graduates, researchers and industrialists alike whose interests lie
b
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p in the topics of renewable energy, nanomaterials, sustainability, green chem-
p:// istry, and functional/porous materials. The book brings together, for the first
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n time in one volume, the different approaches to porous carbons synthesised
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n . 015 from sustainable precursors and hopefully as such provides the reader with
d oy 2 an indepth account of the benefits and applications of converting biomass
dear and biomass-derived precursors into functional, porous carbon-based nano-
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nloebr materials for a variety of increasingly topical applications.
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o1 The Editor would like to express his gratitude to all the contributing
D1
on authors who have given their time and effort to writing their respective chap-
d
e ters. The Editor would also like to thank the publication team of the Royal
h
s
bli Society of Chemistry for all their help in assistance in bringing this book to
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P print – it is very much appreciated.
Robin J. White
Freiburg, Germany