ENGINEERING FOREST RESIDUES INTO FUNCTIONALIZED MESOPOROUS MATERIALS FOR ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL APPLICATIONS

The goal of this project is to fabricate functionalized hierarchical and mesoporous materials (i.e., aerogels) from under-utilized forest residues (such as small-diameter trees, forest thinnings from forest management, and sawdust/wood chips from sawmills) for energy and environmental applications, including harvesting mechanical energy via triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) and removing antibiotics from water. Our specific objectives for achieving the goal are summarized below.Fabricate aerogels from forest residues via a process of dissolution/dispersion-gelation-regeneration/reassembling in a recyclable inorganic molten salt hydrate (MSH) system (e.g., concentrated CaBr2solution).Functionalize the aerogels by introducing different functional groups through blending natural or biobased polymers (polysaccharides) and their derivatives during the fabrication of the aerogels.Characterize the fabricated aerogels to understand their physical properties (strength, rheological properties), porous and morphological structure (porosity, specific surface area, pore size and distribution, and imaging), and functionalities (functional groups).Apply the composite aerogels with promoted triboelectric properties in a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) to harvest mechanical energy from the ambient environment.Apply the composite aerogels with enriched binding sites as a biosorbent to remove antibiotics from water.Training undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers through this project.