A novel plasticizer derived from cardanol, and epoxied cardanol glycidyl ether (ECGE), was synthesized and characterized by 1 H-NMR and 13 C-NMR. The effects of ECGE combined with the commercial plasticizer dioctyl phthalate (DOP), in soft poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) films, were studied. The mechanical properties of PVC films showed both tensile strength and percent elongation increases with increasing ECGE content. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was performed to characterize the thermal stabilities of the plasticized samples and showed the stability of films increased on increasing the content of ECGE. The properties of volatility, extraction, and exudation resistance of plasticizers were tested and analysis by means of solubility parameters as reported in the literature suggests the ECGE has similar or higher stability for these properties than DOP. FTIR analysis of the films also revealed that ECGE interacted with PVC. Due to its inherent chemical backbone and the modified epoxy groups, ECGE properly balanced the properties and improved the performance of PVC films compared with the neat DOP plasticizer.

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A novel antioxidant epoxidized cardanol (ECD), derived from cardanol, was synthesized and characterized by FT-IR, 1H NMR, and 13C NMR. Oxidative stability of ECD used in vegetable oils and biodiesel was evaluated by pressurized differential scanning calorimetry (PDSC) and the Rancimat method, respectively. The results indicated that ECD exhibited antioxidative activity in soybean oil and increased its onset temperature (OT) by nearly 10 °C with 0.7 wt % ECD. It was also observed that other vegetables oils showed significantly improved oxidative stability with the addition of 0.7 wt % ECD. Olive oil showed the highest increased OT by 19.5 °C. Furthermore, ECD has superior antioxidant activity compared to synthetic antioxidant butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and thus could be used as an optimized primary antioxidant for biodiesel. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) indicated that ECD shows better thermal stability than cardanol. The data presented in this study indicate that ECD could be a new biobased antioxidant with better thermal stability.

Bio-oil that is currently produced from lignocellulosic biomass requires significant modification to become an acceptable transportation fuel. Due to its high acidity and chemical instability, many problems arise in handling and utilization. To facilitate the use of bio-oil as a feedstock for chemicals and fuels, there is considerable interest in upgrading bio-oils through chemical pathways. We discuss our observations on ozone oxidation of bio-oil, and synthesis of upgraded bio-oil by subsequent esterification. It was found that the acid value of bio-oil was increased from 45.4 to 118.4 mg KOH/g after oxidation. To decrease the acid value, the oxidized bio-oil was further reacted with butanol to improve fuel properties. Upgrading bio-oil in the conditioned experiment was investigated, in which water content of bio-oil was lowered markedly from 45% to 1−2%. In addition, density of the upgraded bio-oils was observed to decrease from 1.13 to 0.94 and 0.92 kg/m3, and the gross calorific value increased by 163% and 177% by ozone oxidation and without oxidation, respectively.

One challenge facing the development of air electrodes for Zn-air batteries (ZABs) is the embedment of active sites into carbon, which requires cracks and blends between powder and membrane and results in low energy efficiency during manufacturing and utilization. Herein, a surface phosphorization-monolithic strategy is proposed to embed CoO nanoparticles into paulownia carbon plate (P-CoO@PWC) as monolithic electrodes. Benefiting from the retention of natural transport channels, P-CoO@PWC-2 is conducive to the construction of three-phase interface structure for efficient mass transfer and high electrical conductivity. The electrode exhibits remarkable catalytic activities for both oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with a small overpotential gap (E OER − E ORR = 0.68 V). Density functional theory calculations reveal that the incorporation of P on P-CoO@PWC-2 surface adjusts the electronic structure to promote the dissociation of water and the activation of oxygen, thus inducing catalytic activity. The monolithic P-CoO@PWC-2 electrode for quasi-solid-state or aqueous ZABs has excellent specific power, low charge-discharge voltage gap (0.83 V), and long-term cycling stability (over 700 cycles). This work serves as a new avenue for transforming abundant biomass into high-value energy-related engineering products.

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Hydrogels have been widely used in water purification. However, there is not much discussion and comparison about the effects of different nanofillers on the reinforcement and adsorption performances of hydrogels, which can be subjected to rapid water flow and possess strong adsorption ability. In this work, polyacrylamide (PAAM)-sodium alginate (SA) interpenetrating polymer network-structured hydrogels were prepared by in situ polymerization. PAAM formed the first flexible network and SA constructed the second rigid network. Three kinds of inorganic nanoparticles including carbon nanotubes (CNTs), nanoclays (NCs), and nanosilicas (NSs) were incorporated into a PAAM-SA matrix via hydrogen bond. The obtained hydrogels exhibited a macroporous structure with low density (≈1.4 g/cm3) and high water content (≈83%). Compared with neat PAAM-SA, the hydrogels with inorganic nanoparticles possessed excellent mechanical strengths and elasticities, and the compression strength of PAAM-SA-NS reached up to 1.3 MPa at ε = 60% by adding only 0.036 g NS in a 30 g polymer matrix. However, CNT was the best filler to improve the adsorption capacity owing to its multi-walled hollow nanostructure, and the adsorption capacity of PAAM-SA-CNT was 1.28 times higher than that of PAAM-SA. The prepared hydrogels can be potential candidates for use as absorbents to treat wastewater.