Catalytic Graphitization of Biochar to Produce Graphitic Carbon Materials

Graphite materials are vital industrial products. The rapid development of the battery and electronic computer industries has incentivized a great demand for graphite materials. However, today, graphite materials are commercially produced via thermal treating fossil oil or coal derived coke at a temperature higher than 2500℃. Both of the fossil-based feedstock and the energy-intensive production process are contrary to the concept of sustainable development. This thesis proposes a sustainable low-temperature catalytic graphitization process to produce graphite materials with highly ordered crystallinity by using commercial biomass pyrolysis biochar as the feedstock. Iron nitrate was selected as the graphitization catalyst. The effect of the graphitization temperature and the iron loading amount on the properties of the produced carbon products was studied. Produced graphite materials were characterized by performing X-ray diffraction, Nitrogen adsorption-desorption, and elemental analysis. Results show that the average graphitic crystalline size and the degree of graphitization of the product increased with the increase of the graphitization temperature and the iron loading amount. However, the increase of the iron loading amount reduced the catalyst removal efficiency of the acid washing process. When the graphitization temperature is higher than 1100℃ and the iron loading amount is higher than 11.2 wt.%, the crystallinity of the produced graphite material is better than that of the commercial graphite. The graphite material with the best crystallinity, which was produced at a temperature of 1300℃ and an iron loading of 33.6 wt.%, has crystallinity very close tothe pure graphite.