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Ordered Nanoporous Carbon Architectures from Biobased Building Blocks

Project description

Greening energy solutions with biobased carbon

Graphitic carbon structures are important materials for technologies that will define our sustainable future (e.g. efficient energy storage and conversion). Unfortunately, they are mostly produced from petroleum-based non-renewable resources. When it comes to harvesting carbon for use in novel ordered nanoporous carbon materials for applications in green devices, it thus makes sense to look to bio-sourced building blocks as sustainable alternatives to fossil fuel-derived feedstocks. Biomass around us is produced within a very short time compared to fossil fuels. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the BioNanoCarb project will pursue this approach with a focus on paving the way to rational design of supramolecular assemblies integrating bio-sourced compounds.

Objective

Ordered nanoporous carbons are gaining appreciable interest in several green technology applications (efficient charge storage, metal-free carbocatalysis). Nevertheless, at present they can only be fabricated using fossil fuel-based building blocks, through energy-intensive processes with large ecological footprint, and with potential environmental pollution. The overall aim of this project is to provide more sustainable alternatives to these fossil fuel-derived materials by fabricating ordered nanoporous carbons from biobased constituents. Our project will focus on studying biobased polymer-biobased surfactant supramolecular assemblies (objective 1) to develop a soft-templating system using only biobased building blocks (objective 2), for obtaining various ordered nanoporous carbons (objective 3) and apply them in charge storage systems (supercapacitors, objective 4), and for metal-free carbocatalysis (advanced oxidation process, objective 5). Our goal is to have control on the nanoarchitecture and understand structure-performance relationships in applications in order to obtain cutting-edge, high-performance materials for advanced devices. Our novel bottom-up approach will give the first biobased soft-templating method to make ordered nanoporous carbons, and is expected to open up new research directions for sustainable material solutions. This project will provide materials and processes with reduced ecological footprint over existing products and technologies, contributing to a sustainable economic growth and to the realisation of a resilient society.

Coordinator

KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
Net EU contribution
€ 191 760,00
Address
OUDE MARKT 13
3000 Leuven
Belgium

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Region
Vlaams Gewest Prov. Vlaams-Brabant Arr. Leuven
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
No data

Partners (1)