"Liquid-To-Solid" Conversion of Biomass Wastes Enhanced by Uniform Nitrogen Doping for the Preparation of High-Value-Added Carbon Materials for Energy Storage with Superior Characteristics.

Sustainable human development urgently calls for decreasing the cost of energy storage. Continuous massive consumption of dedicated carbon electrode materials with complex internal molecular architectures requires rethinking both the source of materials and the process of their production. Finding an efficient sustainable solution is focused on the reuse and development of waste processing into corresponding high-value-added carbon materials. The processing of solid wastes into solid value-added carbon materials ("solid-to-solid") is relatively well developed but can be a two-stage process involving carbon architecture rearrangement and heteroatom doping. Processing liquid wastes into high-value-added solid material ("liquid-to-solid") is typically much more challenging with the need for different production equipment. In the present study, a new approach is developed to bypass the difficulty in the "liquid-to-solid" conversion and simultaneously built in the ability for heteroatom doping within one production stage. Polycondensation of liquid humins waste with melamine (as a nitrogen-containing cross-linking component) results in solidification with preferential C and N atomic arrangements. For subsequent thermochemical conversion of the obtained solidified wastes, complicated equipment is no longer required, and under simple process conditions, carbon materials for energy storage with superior characteristics were obtained. A complete sequence is reported in the present study, including liquid waste processing, nitrogen incorporation, carbon material production, structural study of the obtained materials, detailed electrochemical evaluation and real supercapacitor device manufacture and testing.

New Bio-Based Furanic Materials Effectively Absorb Metals from Water and Exert Antimicrobial Activity.

Development of sustainable bio-based materials for removal of toxic contaminants from water is a high priority goal. Novel bio-based binary and ternary copolymers with enhanced ion-exchange, adsorption and antibacterial properties were obtained by using plant biomass-derived diallyl esters of furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) as crosslinking agents and easily available vinyl monomers. The synthesized copolymer materials showed higher sorption capacities for NiII , CoII and CuII compared to the commercial ion-exchange resins, and they maintained their high metal adsorption capacities for over 10 cycles of regeneration. The synthesized copolymer gels containing 1-5 wt % of the crosslinker showed excellent water absorption capacities. The synthesized copolymers with 1 % crosslinker content showed swelling ratios high enough to also act as moisture absorbents. Synthesized copolymers with crosslinker content of 10 wt % performed as contact-active antibacterials by inhibiting the growth of Gram-positive (S. aureus) and Gram-negative bacteria (E. coli, K. pneumonia) in suspension tests.