Biomass-derived porous graphitic carbon materials for energy and environmental applications

Abstract

As we all know, environmental protection and sustainable energy utilization are significant challenges for us. Due to their many excellent characteristics, carbon materials have been playing a very important role in energy and environmental applications. Biomass is the only renewable carbon source and crucial precursor of carbonaceous materials and has the advantages of a unique structure, a wide range of sources, biodegradability, and low cost. Developing high-performance carbonaceous materials from biomass is a significant research subject. Biomass-derived porous graphitic carbon materials (BPGCs) have received extensive attention as novel high-performance sustainable carbon materials owing to its well-developed porous structure, good graphitic structure, and heteroatom doping. Here, this review firstly focuses on the principal synthesis methodologies of BPGCs. Next, three electrochemical energy storage and conversion systems that utilize BPGCs are intensively investigated, including supercapacitors (SCs), lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and fuel cells (FCs). Then, BPGCs are further reviewed in terms of their application in the field of environmental protection, which is also the first systematic summary of BPGCs in environmental applications. Finally, this review points out the direction that is worthy of further research in the future and the essential issues that have not yet been resolved.