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Porous polysaccharide carbonaceous materials

Carbonaceous materials with controlled pore size and properties from renewable polysaccharide sources with applications in water treatment, gas decolourisation, gas absorbency, solid phase catalysis in organic synthesis, and chromatographic separations.

Scientists at York have developed a method of converting polysaccharides into mesoporous materials with characteristics ranging from starch-like to carbon-like (Starbons®) as an alternative to current methods to produce activated carbon materials. Crucially, these materials can operate in aqueous solutions where currently available materials frequently lose their activity.

The method involves the preparation of polysaccharide gels to create a porous material, followed by thermal decomposition through heating in an inert atmosphere in the presence of catalyst (e.g. organic acids). Alternatively, polysaccharides can be chosen that naturally include acidic functional groups such as alginic acid, pectin, carageenan, or polysaccharides that have been chemically modified to contain acidic functionalities prior to carbonisation. In the latter cases, no acid catalyst is necessary in the carbonisation step and the final material will retain some acid functional groups in its structure.

Benefits

• Polysaccharides are non-toxic, naturally abundant, and biodegradable and as such represent a vital renewable resource for sustainable development.
• The method is flexible and can accommodate polysaccharides from different natural sources (including pectin, okra, alginic acid, different types of starch, or a combination of these).
• Variation of the temperature of decomposition of polysaccharides leads to different material characteristics, e.g. surface functionality (aromatic vs. non-aromatic), degree of porosity, degree of carbonisation and hydrophobicity, such that they can be tuned to the required application.
• Post-modification allows the introduction of (additional) functional groups into the materials such as Brönsted acids groups (carboxylic, sulfonic), Lewis acids (BF3, ZnCl2 etc), bases, or metals to enable their application as catalysts in a wider range of chemical transformations.
• Being heterogeneous, these materials have the advantage of being easily separable from reaction mixtures.
• In general, nanoparticles produced using Starbons® and the novel functionalisation methods are more uniform in size than using conventional methods and have advantageous stability by being on a solid support.

Applications

• Applications for these materials include solid phase catalysts in organic synthetic transformations and as chromatographic separations media, in particular for polar organic molecules.
• Additionally, the materials can be applied as agents for water treatment, gas decolorisation, and gas absorbency
• Polysaccharide/metal nanoparticle hybrid materials using palladium are active catalysts in common carbon-carbon coupling reactions such as of the Heck, Suzuki, and Sonogashira type. Modified with silver nanoparticles, the resulting hybrid materials have anti-microbial properties and can be used in wound dressings.

Investment readiness status

Available for licensing

IP status

Portfolio of patent application