Elsevier

Materials Letters

Volume 264, 1 April 2020, 127318
Materials Letters

Preparations of lignin-derived ordered mesoporous carbon by self-assembly in organic solvent and aqueous solution: Comparison in textural property

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2020.127318Get rights and content

Highlights

  • LDMCS and LDMCE were successfully prepared derived from Masson pine alkali lignin.

  • LDMCE was successfully prepared by using evaporation-induced self-assembly.

  • LDMCS was successfully prepared by using salt-induced self-assembly.

  • LDMCE and LDMCS exhibit an ordered 2D hexagonal mesoporous structure.

  • LDMCE and LDMCS have an appropriate specific surface area and mesopore volume.

Abstract

Ordered mesoporous carbons (OMCs) were successfully prepared derived from Masson pine alkali lignin using evaporation-induced self-assembly and salt-induced self-assembly, respectively. The two OMCs show obvious differences in textural property including morphology, specific surface area and mesopore volume.

Introduction

Ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC) has been widely used in adsorption, drug delivery, supercapacitor and catalysis owing to its excellent structural features, such as ordered mesoporous structure, high specific surface area and good chemical stability [1], [2], [3], [4]. In comparison to hard template method, soft template method has become increasingly popular due to its advantages of versatility and flexibility, which can greatly improve the performance of mesoporous materials and the possibility of large-scale synthesis.

The soft template method applied in OMC preparation can be further divided into two approaches: evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) in organic solvent [5] and salt-induced self-assembly (SISA) in aqueous solution [6]. In general, for EISA method, volatile organic solvent such as ethanol is used to induce self-assembly of carbon precursor and soft template by slow evaporation of the solvent. Differently, for SISA method, self-assembly is accomplished via pH control and salt-induced phase separation.

To our knowledge, most of carbon sources used in OMC preparation are expensive and toxic petrochemical materials, such as phenol [7] and resorcinol [8]. Lignin is the only non-petroleum resource in nature that provides abundant regenerative aromatic compounds, and it has been employed as superior substitute for phenol in the sustainable synthesis of OMC owing to its advantages of phenol-rich structure, low cost and high carbon content [9].

Herein, using Masson pine alkali lignin (MAL) as raw material, two OMCs were synthesized using EISA method and SISA method, which were named as LDMCE and LDMCS, respectively. The comparison in textural property between LDMCE and LDMCS was conducted in detail by structural characterization using the measurments of X-ray diffraction (XRD), small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET).

Section snippets

Materials

MAL was isolated and purified from the black liquor of the masson pine pulp by acid treatment, which was provided by Nanping Paper-making Co. Ltd (China). During the subsequent preparation of OMC, no purification treatment was performed on MAL. NaOH (≥96.0%), NaCl (≥99.5%), C6H5OH (≥99.0%), HCHO (37.0–40.0%) and C2H5OH (≥99.7%) were purchased from Xilong Science Co., Ltd (China). Concentrated HCl (36.0–38.0%) was purchased from Sinopharm Chemical Reagent Co., Ltd (China). Pluronic F127 (EO106PO

Results and discussion

Fig. 1 shows the XRD patterns of LDMCE and LDMCS. As shown in Fig. 1, both of LDMCE and LDMCS have two distinct diffraction peaks at 2θ = 22° and 43°, respectively, which can be assigned to (0 0 2) and (1 0 0) diffractions of graphitic material [12], respectively. Result indicates that LDMCE and LDMCS have a partially graphitized structure after carbonization at 900 °C.

Fig. 2 demonstrates the SAXS curves of LDMCS and LDMCE. As shown in Fig. 2 that LDMCE exhibits an intense diffraction peak at

Conclusion

In summary, there are some obvious differences in textural property between LDMCS and LDMCE. Although both of LDMCS and LDMCE exhibit an ordered 2D hexagonal mesoporous structure, their morphologies are significantly different, and the former has much larger specific surface area and mesopore volume than the latter. On the other hand, compared with LDMCE, less cost and shorter time are required for the preparation of LDMCS via self-assembly in aqueous solution, reflecting an environmentally

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Shuai Wang: Investigation, Writing - original draft. Guobao Sima: Writing - review & editing, Supervision. Ying Cui: Writing - review & editing, Supervision. Longjun Chang: Writing - review & editing. Linhuo Gan: Conceptualization, Supervision.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant No. 21706085), China, Subsidized Project for Postgraduates’ Innovative Fund in Scientific Research of Huaqiao University, China, and the Foundation of Key Laboratory of Pulp and Paper Science and Technology of Ministry of Education/Shandong Province of China (grant No. KF201804), China.

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