Fabrication, characteristics and applications of carbon materials with different morphologies and porous structures produced from wood liquefaction: A review

Wood has emerged as a sustainable and promising precursor for carbon materials owing to its natural abundance and superb properties. It is of significant importance to prepare carbon materials with different morphologies (carbon spheres, carbon nanowires, carbon membranes, and three-dimensional carbon nanomaterials) and porous structures (disordered and ordered structure) for various fields (adsorption, capacitor, catalyst, solar cells, and sensors). Here, we introduce the characteristics of carbon materials with different morphologies from various biomass sources (Cedar, Starch, Chitin, Straw, Bamboo, and Larch sawdust) and present a comprehensive review of the current research on the development of carbon materials with different morphologies (carbon spheres, carbon membrane, and carbon foams) from liquefied wood. We then introduce control methods (direct carbonization, hydrothermal carbonization, and liquefaction-carbonization) that have been explored to prepare carbon materials with ordered porous structures. Next, we highlight the liquefaction method for the degradation and activity transformation of wood. In particular, we focus on the fabrication, characteristics and applications of carbon materials with different morphologies and porous structures produced from liquefied wood by different control methods (ultrasonic spray pyrolysis, soft template, doping, foaming, and nano-ething). Finally, we present our perspectives on supercapacitors, which need further exploration in the future for urban traffic systems, military equipment, intelligent distributed grid systems, new energy vehicles, solar energy systems, and wind turbine systems.