Nano Carbon Structures from Cellulosic Biomass for use as Functional Materials

We report herein the production of hierarchical nanocarbon materials from cellulose fibers. The carbonized cellulosic fibers with branching out CNTs (CC-CNT) offer interesting surface and electrochemical properties that are of interests for chemical processing and biosensing applications. In our tests for chemical adsorption tests, CC-CNT offered highly selective adsorption of hydrocarbons from gas mixtures, especially chemicals with C=C bond and aromatic structures. More interestingly, the chemicals absorbed and accumulated can be quickly released from the surface of the materials upon application of modest electrical current. Such an electrically switchable adsorption behavior may promise applications in a broad areas including air quality control, chemical sensing and fuel storage.