Agricultural product-derived carbon for energy, sensing, and environmental applications: A mini-review

Abstract

Carbon is one of the versatile materials used in modern life for human welfare. It has a wide range of applications such as drug delivery, coatings, energy generation and storage, gas separation, water purification, sensor fabrication, and catalysis. Most of the widely used carbon materials are graphene and carbon nanotubes. Nonrenewable precursors (e.g., natural gas), toxic chemicals, and complex synthesis methods are often required for their preparation, limiting their wide practical applications. Besides these, biomass-derived carbons are attractive materials as they can be prepared simply from renewable biomass. However, their practical applications' success partially depends on their properties like size, shape, porosity, and presence of heteroatoms, which can be controlled by selecting the proper type of biomass, activating agent, and preparation method. It is noted that different species of plants have different chemical compositions and textures. This mini-review summarizes our group's recent sophisticated developments in agricultural-bio-waste-derived carbonaceous materials, including nanomaterials for electrocatalytic water splitting, electrochemical sensors, supercapacitors, water splitting, water treatment, gas separation, and enhance oil recovery. This offers valuable insights and essential guidelines towards the future design of agro-waste derived carbonaceous materials in various applications.
 Bangladesh J. Plant Taxon. 27(2): 467-478, 2020 (December)

Present Status and Future Prospects of Jute in Nanotechnology: A Review

“…Over the last several years, considerable research activities have been dedicated to the jute‐derived carbon (JC), including nanocarbon production through direct pyrolysis to tune the characteristics of carbon materials, such as morphology, pore characteristics, surface functionality, and surface area, to improve its capability for practical applications [12,20] …”

“…The development of nanoscale devices has recently become one of the most emerging research areas. Enhancing the surface area of active nanomaterials without increasing the dimensions of the devices leads to more efficient applications in various fields, such as solar cells, sensors, detectors, targeted drug delivery, antibacterial agents, energy conversion and storage, nanogenerators, and catalysis [5–20] …”

“…Scientific studies of green nanotechnology have drawn interests of many researchers because such environment‐friendly nanomaterials turn out to be a viable alternative solution to the energy crisis, environmental pollution, ever depleting non‐renewable resources, and global warming. In this regard, cellulose‐based biomass has attracted a considerable attention due to its abundance and nontoxic nature [12,20] …”

Recent Advances in the Use of Biomass‐Derived Activated Carbon as an Electrode Material for Electroanalysis

“…[9] A range of materials (e. g., metals, metal oxides, and nonmetals) have been identified and used to fabricate bulk electrodes or working electrodes in electrochemical sensors. [29] Metals such as Au, Hg, Pt, Ag, and Ag < -> Hg, [30][31][32][33][34] metal oxides such as iron oxide, TiO 2 , indium tin oxide (ITO), silver oxide, zinc oxide, and copper oxide, [35][36][37][38][39][40][41] nonmetals such as carbon, carbon black, doped carbon, pencil graphite, and activated carbon (AC) as well as nanomaterials of metals, metal oxides, nonmetals, and composites [42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] have been extensively studied and reported for the use in bulk electrodes as well as electrode modifiers or electrocatalysts in the area of electrochemical biosensors. Besides, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), [50][51][52][53][54][55] organic electroconductive polymers or salts, [56,57] two-and three-dimensional nanostructured carbon materials, and nanomaterials have been used as electrode modifiers to biomarkers present in biofluids).…”

Carbon Nanofiber and Poly[2‐(methacryloyloxy) ethyl] Trimethylammonium Chloride Composite as a New Benchmark Carbon‐based Electrocatalyst for Sulfide Oxidation

“…To enhance their electrocatalytic properties toward sulfide oxidation, researchers modified their surfaces with various electrocatalytic materials such as graphene, multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), graphite, gold nanoparticles, ITO nanoparticles, and conducting polymers [2,14,16,17] . Carbon‐based modifiers such as MWCNTs, carbon nanofibers (CNF), graphene, and activated carbon have attracted the most attention for different electrochemical applications owing to their unique properties such as high conductivity, chemical and mechanical stability, and moderate electrocatalytic properties [18–28] . Nanofibers are lightweight with small diameters and a high surface‐to‐volume ratio, making them suitable for various applications such as sensors, nanogenerators, functional materials, and energy storage [29–32] …”