Nature-inspired Engineering of High-Performance Nanoporous Carbon Materials for Sustainable Energy and Environmental Applications

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A major scientific challenge facing today’s world is the ever-increasing demand for natural resources, and the need to manage the negative impact from energy and raw materials production on the environment. The challenge is particularly relevant to Canada where natural resources are fundamentally important to our socio-economic and environmental wellbeing. Directly addressing this challenge, the proposed research program will focus on innovative technologies that maximize the value of natural resources and enhance sustainability. Specifically, we will build technological foundations for novel processes that produce high-performance, low-cost nanoporous carbon materials from natural precursors (e.g. wood of maple or bamboo). Nanoporous carbon materials have been explored for applications from the traditional separation and catalysis to emerging areas like supercapacitors. Readily accessible micropores (< 2nm), conductive carbon matrix and functional carbon surface are key to their performance. Pore accessibility depends on the dimension, size distribution and interconnectivity of pores. A popular strategy for creating nanoporous carbons with defined pore and matrix structures has been to use sp2-bonded carbon atoms as building blocks via chemical-physical routes—a bottom-up approach. However, their large-scale commercial adaptation has been prevented by process complexity coupled with high costs. We will adopt a different, top-down strategy, by creating high-performance nanoporous carbons from biomass with desirable inherent macroporous and complementing it with microporosity and functional surface groups. We have successfully applied this approach to petroleum coke — a by-product produced in the Canadian oilsand industry. Using the industrial by-product, we were able to establish process conditions to produce of a set of nanoporous carbons with unique chemical functionalities and outstanding performance in mercury vapour capture and energy storage in supercapacitors. In the proposed research program, we will shift our focus to nature from the industrial wasteyard, continuing to pursue novel forms and functions of nanoporous carbon for sustainable energy and environmental applications. The anticipated technological and scientific advances can have a significant socio-economic and environmental impact on multiple industrial sectors and benefit society as a whole. First, the biochar-based nanoporous carbons created with these new will enable the next generation of electrical energy storage (EES) devices that are affordable, rapid-charging, long-lived and have high energy and power density. These new EES devices have the potential to significantly enhance alternative energy initiatives - wind power, solar energy, and electrical vehicles. Second, the biochar-based nanoporous carbons optimized for fast ion transport open the possibility of many value-added application for industries, including precious metal recovery, contaminated site remediation, metal value reclamation from electronic waste, new catalysts and carbon dioxide gas separation for sequestration. Third, the new knowledge to be discovered from this research program will help provide new paradigms on biochar utilization. Although the amount of biomass-derived carbon to be used in supercapacitors is likely negligible compared with the amount of biomass available, massive utilization of biochar enabled by many new applications could potentially represent a viable option for carbon sequestration and storage, helping mitigate climate change. Moreover, the proposed program will contribute directly to the education of next generation of engineering researchers and innovators.