Cellulose aerogel membranes (CAMs) are proposed as a matrix for gel polymer electrolyte to the fabrication of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) with superior thermal stability. The CAMs are obtained from a cellulose-ionic liquid solution via a dissolution-regeneration-supercritical drying route. The presence of high porosity, the nanoporous network structure, and numerous polar hydroxyl groups benefits the quick absorption of liquid electrolytes for gelation of the CAMs and improves the ionic conductivity of the gelled CAMs. LIBs assembled with the gelled CAMs display excellent electrochemical performance at room temperature, and more importantly, the intrinsic thermal resistance of cellulose allows the LIBs to run stably for at least 30 min at working temperatures as high as 120 °C. The CAMs, with their excellent thermal stability, are promising for the development of highly safe, cost-effective, and high-performance LIBs.

Waste newspapers, composed of cellulose (>60wt%), lignin (∼15wt%), hemicellulose (∼10wt%) and other additives, are one kind of low-cost, easily collected and abundant resources. In order to get value-added products from this waste, in this work an attempt was made to directly convert waste newspapers into cellulose-based films by employing an ionic liquid 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride (AmimCl) as a solvent. Most of the organic substances in this waste were dissolved quickly in AmimCl under mild conditions, and then coagulated and dried. Although containing lignin, hemicellulose and inorganic additives, the regenerated cellulose-based films were smooth, compact and semi-transparent, and exhibited good mechanical properties. If the newspaper/AmimCl solution was filtered to remove undissolved inorganic substances, the regenerated films became transparent and had a tensile strength of 80MPa. Thus, this work provides a new, simple and highly efficient way to achieve a high-valued utilization of waste newspapers for packaging and wrapping.

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It is attractive and meaningful to effectively utilize agricultural straws for preparing high value-added materials. In this work, we employ corn husk as a model substance for agricultural straws. By using microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) as an adhesive and reinforcing phase, direct utilization of corn husk is achieved, and consequently, corn husk/MCC films are fabricated in an ionic liquid 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride (AmimCl). Corn husk is dissolved completely in AmimCl; then, MCC is added and partially dissolved by controlling the dissolution conditions. The undissolved nanocrystals from MCC are used as the reinforcing phase, and the dissolved MCC is used as the adhesive and part of the matrix. As a result, homogeneous, transparent, beige-colored corn husk/MCC nanocomposite films are obtained. The resultant nanocomposite films with the content of corn husk in a range of 50–71 wt % exhibit high tensile properties. The tensile strength and elastic modulus of nanocomposite films containing 50 wt % corn husk have reached 67 MPa and 4.4 GPa, respectively. Thus, this work provides a simple, economical, and effective method for converting sustainable biomass resources into valuable materials.

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Emulsification is the effect of a liquid being uniformly dispersed as tiny droplets in another liquid that is immiscible. Traditional emulsification requires the addition of suitable surfactant to stabilize the emulsion. When the surfactant molecules are replaced by solid particles, the emulsion is known as Pickering emulsions (PEs). PEs with dispersed phase volume fraction above 74% are also named high internal phase Pickering emulsions (HIPPEs). The use of solid particles of natural origin allows PEs to be highly physically stable, environmentally compatible, and biodegradable compared to traditional emulsions. Among them, protein-based solid particles are well suited to stabilize PEs for their great emulsification properties and nutritional value. In this article, we reviewed the preparation of different forms of proteins and their emulsion stabilization properties and summarized the applications of protein-based PEs in various fields, including food, biomedicine, porous materials, biodegradable packaging films, sewage treatment, 3D printing, etc.

Electroreduction of CO2 is a sustainable approach to produce syngas with tunable CO/H2 ratios, which are required as specific reactants for the optimization of desired products. Herein, ZnO-d and ZnO-n...