Issue 14, 2024

Renewable biomass-based aerogels: from structural design to functional regulation

Abstract

Global population growth and industrialization have exacerbated the nonrenewable energy crises and environmental issues, thereby stimulating an enormous demand for producing environmentally friendly materials. Typically, biomass-based aerogels (BAs), which are mainly composed of biomass materials, show great application prospects in various fields because of their exceptional properties such as biocompatibility, degradability, and renewability. To improve the performance of BAs to meet the usage requirements of different scenarios, a large number of innovative works in the past few decades have emphasized the importance of micro-structural design in regulating macroscopic functions. Inspired by the ubiquitous random or regularly arranged structures of materials in nature ranging from micro to meso and macro scales, constructing different microstructures often corresponds to completely different functions even with similar biomolecular compositions. This review focuses on the preparation process, design concepts, regulation methods, and the synergistic combination of chemical compositions and microstructures of BAs with different porous structures from the perspective of gel skeleton and pore structure. It not only comprehensively introduces the effect of various microstructures on the physical properties of BAs, but also analyzes their potential applications in the corresponding fields of thermal management, water treatment, atmospheric water harvesting, CO2 absorption, energy storage and conversion, electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding, biological applications, etc. Finally, we provide our perspectives regarding the challenges and future opportunities of BAs. Overall, our goal is to provide researchers with a thorough understanding of the relationship between the microstructures and properties of BAs, supported by a comprehensive analysis of the available data.

Graphical abstract: Renewable biomass-based aerogels: from structural design to functional regulation

Article information

Article type
Review Article
Submitted
21 Jan 2024
First published
19 Jun 2024

Chem. Soc. Rev., 2024,53, 7489-7530

Renewable biomass-based aerogels: from structural design to functional regulation

L. Chen, X. Yu, M. Gao, C. Xu, J. Zhang, X. Zhang, M. Zhu and Y. Cheng, Chem. Soc. Rev., 2024, 53, 7489 DOI: 10.1039/D3CS01014G

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements