Lignin-derived carbon materials for catalysis and electrochemical energy storage

Lignin is abundant in green biomass. However, most of the lignin remains to be utilized. Lignin-derived carbons (LDCs) provide a feasible approach for lignin valorization. Owing to the coupling merits of low cost, tunable morphologies, and high porosity, LDC materials have drawn extensive attention in the fields of catalysis and electrochemical energy storage. This review summarizes the recent advances in LDC materials and their applications in catalysis, supercapacitors, and secondary batteries. The bottlenecks and future trends are proposed for the further development of advanced LDCs. This review is expected to guide the preparation of high-value-added LDCs. Lignin-derived carbons have the coupling merits of easy synthesis, low cost, and wide ranges of resources. Through the strategies of morphology tailoring, heteroatom doping, and heterostructure construction, lignin-derived carbons can exhibit different functional properties, making them show great potential in the applications of thermocatalysis, photocatalysis, electrocatalysis, supercapacitors, and secondary batteries. image