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New Materials for a Sustainable Future

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 July 2021) | Viewed by 11108

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Applied Physics, University of Extremadura, Avda. de Elvas s/n, 06006 Badajoz, Spain
Interests: biomass; waste; thermochemical processing; activated carbons; adsorption; pyrolysis; HTC; combustion
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent decades, we have witnessed a revolution in the development of sustainable materials with specific properties to satisfy given demands. Among these materials, carbon materials have had a great impact because of their tunable properties and wide range of applications. The strength of these materials is based not only on their performance with regard to the corresponding application but especially on the green approach followed during their synthesis (as compared to previous traditional methods) in terms of energy consumption, use of chemicals, environmental hazardous effects associated to processing conditions, carbon footprint, use of wastes, etc. Green economy principles and last world agreements in terms of environment and pollution demand competing methods in terms of minimization of impact, in the widest concept of the word.

This Special Issue will focus on the production and/or applications of carbon materials made in the frame of environmentally friendly methods and is open to seveal areas of research (biomass thermochemical processing, activated carbons, carbon supercondensers, etc.). The pieces of research submitted to this Special Issue will have to offer advantages in relation to already existing processing methods, related to the costs, ease of handling, improvements in terms of reduction of contamination or waste disposal, or lower energy input required.

Dr. Silvia Roman Suero
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Green materials
  • Biomass
  • Sustainable synthesis
  • Energy saving

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 3445 KiB  
Article
Hydrothermal Conversion of Spent Sugar Beets into High-Value Platform Molecules
by Jens Pfersich, Pablo J. Arauzo, Michela Lucian, Pierpaolo Modugno, Maria-Magdalena Titirici, Luca Fiori and Andrea Kruse
Molecules 2020, 25(17), 3914; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules25173914 - 27 Aug 2020
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 3755
Abstract
The growing importance of bio-based products, combined with the desire to decrease the production of wastes, boosts the necessity to use wastes as raw materials for bio-based products. A waste material with a large potential is spent sugar beets, which are mainly used [...] Read more.
The growing importance of bio-based products, combined with the desire to decrease the production of wastes, boosts the necessity to use wastes as raw materials for bio-based products. A waste material with a large potential is spent sugar beets, which are mainly used as animal feeds or fertilizers. After hydrothermal treatment, the produced chars exhibited an H/C ratio of 1.2 and a higher heating value of 22.7 MJ/kg, which were similar to that of subbituminous coal and higher than that of lignite. Moreover, the treatment of 25 g/L of glucose and 22 g/L of fructose by heating up to 160 °C led to a possible application of spent sugar beets for the production of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural. In the present study, the maximum concentration of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural was 3.4 g/L after heating up to 200 °C. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Materials for a Sustainable Future)
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16 pages, 3393 KiB  
Article
Potential Use of Waste Activated Sludge Hydrothermally Treated as a Renewable Fuel or Activated Carbon Precursor
by J. A. Villamil, E. Diaz, M. A. de la Rubia and A. F. Mohedano
Molecules 2020, 25(15), 3534; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules25153534 - 02 Aug 2020
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 3812
Abstract
In this work, dewatered waste activated sludge (DWAS) was subjected to hydrothermal carbonization to obtain hydrochars that can be used as renewable solid fuels or activated carbon precursors. A central composite rotatable design was used to analyze the effect of temperature (140–220 °C) [...] Read more.
In this work, dewatered waste activated sludge (DWAS) was subjected to hydrothermal carbonization to obtain hydrochars that can be used as renewable solid fuels or activated carbon precursors. A central composite rotatable design was used to analyze the effect of temperature (140–220 °C) and reaction time (0.5–4 h) on the physicochemical properties of the products. The hydrochars exhibited increased heating values (up to 22.3 MJ/kg) and their air-activation provided carbons with a low BET area (100 m2/g). By contrast, chemical activation with K2CO3, KOH, FeCl3 and ZnCl2 gave carbons with a well-developed porous network (BET areas of 410–1030 m2/g) and substantial contents in mesopores (0.079–0.271 cm3/g) and micropores (0.136–0.398 cm3/g). The chemically activated carbons had a fairly good potential to adsorb emerging pollutants such as sulfamethoxazole, antipyrine and desipramine from the liquid phase. This was especially the case with KOH-activated hydrochars, which exhibited a maximum adsorption capacity of 412, 198 and 146 mg/g, respectively, for the previous pollutants. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Materials for a Sustainable Future)
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12 pages, 1602 KiB  
Article
Surface Interactions during the Removal of Emerging Contaminants by Hydrochar-Based Adsorbents
by Silvia Román, Joâo Manuel Valente Nabais, Beatriz Ledesma, Carlos Laginhas and Maria-Magdalena Titirici
Molecules 2020, 25(9), 2264; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules25092264 - 11 May 2020
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 2891
Abstract
The aim of this work was to test activated carbons derived from hydrochars produced from sunflower stem, olive stone and walnut shells, as adsorbents for emerging contaminants in aqueous solution, namely fluoxetine and nicotinic acid. The adsorption capacity was determined by the chemical [...] Read more.
The aim of this work was to test activated carbons derived from hydrochars produced from sunflower stem, olive stone and walnut shells, as adsorbents for emerging contaminants in aqueous solution, namely fluoxetine and nicotinic acid. The adsorption capacity was determined by the chemical nature of the adsorbents, namely the presence of specific functional groups and their positive or negative ionization in aqueous solutions and also by steric factors. The activated carbons produced by air showed a higher adsorption capacity of fluoxetine, whilst the samples produced by carbon dioxide activation were more useful to remove nicotinic acid. In general, surface acidity was advantageous for fluoxetine adsorption and detrimental for nicotinic acid removal. The adsorption mechanisms involved in each case were discussed and related to the adsorbents characteristics. The maximum adsorption capacity, Q0, given by the Langmuir model was 44.1 and 91.9 mg g−1 for fluoxetine and nicotinic acid adsorption, respectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Materials for a Sustainable Future)
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