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  • Primer
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Biocarbon materials

Nature Reviews Methods Primers volume 4, Article number: 19 (2024) Cite this article

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Abstract

Biocarbons are carbonaceous solids derived from renewable and sustainable feedstocks and their combinations through thermochemical conversion at high temperatures (>350 °C) in the absence of oxygen or in limited oxygen. Expanding their applications from soil and fuel into advanced arenas of polymer composites, energy and environment is the key strategy to substitute for a wide range of conventional fossil-based carbon materials with the added benefits of sustainability and circularity. This Primer discusses biocarbon research, including feedstock selection, characterization, pyrolysis techniques, post-modification strategies, diversified applications and challenges. A critical assessment of carbon sequestration, waste reduction, economic impact, material sustainability and circularity and future perspectives is presented. This Primer mainly focuses on materials (polymer composites), energy (storage and conversion) and environmental remediation (wastewater treatment and CO2 capture). The hurdles that biocarbon-based materials must overcome are effective market propagation, industry-standard adherence and maintenance of a steady flow of feedstocks to guarantee continuous production. Maintenance of reproducibility of biocarbon materials with similar physicochemical and functional properties is another challenging task, which needs more investigation with the support of theoretical modelling and database generation. The Primer also delves into techno-economic analysis, which integrates biomass logistics and their industrial processing, which will enable a new manufacturing platform in biocarbon production for large-scale technological applications.

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Fig. 1: Biocarbon materials for composite, energy, environmental and other technological applications.
Fig. 2: Processing methods to produce biocarbon.
Fig. 3: Techno-economic and environmental assessment approaches for biocarbon evaluation.
Fig. 4: An overview of the various types of interaction of biocarbon in polymeric composites.
Fig. 5: A schematic overview of composite applications of biocarbon.
Fig. 6: Catalytic production of graphitic biocarbon and its application in energy storage devices.
Fig. 7: Mechanisms involved in adsorption of pollutants by biocarbon.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Ontario Research Fund, Research Excellence Program; Round 9 (ORF-RE09) Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities; the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA)–University of Guelph–Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance; the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC); and the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) through Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC) Bioproducts AgSci Cluster Program for financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bioproducts Discovery and Development Centre, Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

    Amar K. Mohanty & Manjusri Misra

  2. School of Engineering, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

    Amar K. Mohanty & Manjusri Misra

  3. Sustainable Materials and Nanotechnology Lab (SMNL), Department of Physics, V.H.N.S.N. College (Autonomous), Virudhunagar, Tamil Nadu, India

    Singaravelu Vivekanandhan

  4. Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden

    Oisik Das

  5. Universidad Nacional de Colombia – Sede Bogotá, Facultad de Ingeniería, Ciudad Universitaria, Bogotá, Colombia

    Lina M. Romero Millán

  6. Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

    Naomi B. Klinghoffer

  7. Institute for Chemicals and Fuels from Alternative Resources (ICFAR), The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

    Naomi B. Klinghoffer

  8. IMT Mines Albi, RAPSODEE CNRS UMR 5302, Université de Toulouse, Campus Jarlard, Toulouse, France

    Ange Nzihou

  9. Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Ange Nzihou

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  1. Amar K. Mohanty
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  2. Singaravelu Vivekanandhan
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Contributions

Conceptualization of the article (A.K.M., M.M., O.D. and S.V.); Introduction (A.K.M., S.V. and O.D.); Experimentation (A.N., S.V., O.D., N.B.K., L.M.R.M. and M.M); Results (O.D., S.V., A.K.M., L.M.R.M., N.B.K., A.N. and M.M.); Applications (S.V., O.D., A.K.M., N.B.K., A.N., L.M.R.M. and M.M.); Reproducibility and data deposition (L.M.R.M., N.B.K., O.D. and S.V.); Limitations and optimizations (O.D., S.V., N.B.K., A.N. and M.M.); Outlook (S.V., O.D., A.N., A.K.M. and M.M); overview of the Primer (all authors).

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Amar K. Mohanty.

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Nature Reviews Method Primers thanks Eric Singsaas, Zhihong Zhu and Jacek Andrzejewski for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Related links

European Biochar Certificate (EBC): https://www.european-biochar.org/en

UC Davis Biochar Database: https://biochar.ucdavis.edu/

Supplementary information

Glossary

Biochar

A biocarbon variant produced by pyrolysis of biomass at temperatures ranging from 350 to 900 °C that results in an amorphous or turbostratic structure.

Conducting carbon

Highly conductive carbonaceous materials that are extensively used in batteries and supercapacitors to create electrical channels in electrode material.

Graphitization

The thermal treatment of amorphous or turbostratic carbon above 1,000 °C for prolonged residence times to transform carbon to a more ordered form.

Heteroatom doping

Replacement of carbon atoms in the carbon structure by heteroatoms such as nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, oxygen and boron.

Nanoindentation

A method to determine nano- and micro-scale mechanical properties of particulates, thin films, coatings and interfaces by applying a known load on a flat surface and measuring the indented area.

Reinforcement

Fibres or particulates in polymeric composite that effectively participate in stress transfer from polymeric to reinforcement phase.

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Mohanty, A.K., Vivekanandhan, S., Das, O. et al. Biocarbon materials. Nat Rev Methods Primers 4, 19 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43586-024-00297-4

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