Fungi-Enabled Synthesis of Ultrahigh-Surface-Area Porous Carbon

Ping Wang; Huan Ye; Ya-Xia Yin; Hao Chen; Yin-Bing Bian; Zhuo-Ren Wang; Fei-Fei Cao; Yu-Guo Guo

doi:10.1002/adma.201805134

Fungi-Enabled Synthesis of Ultrahigh-Surface-Area Porous Carbon

Adv Mater. 2019 Jan;31(4):e1805134. doi: 10.1002/adma.201805134. Epub 2018 Dec 5.

Authors

Ping Wang^{1

2

3}, Huan Ye¹, Ya-Xia Yin^{2

4}, Hao Chen¹, Yin-Bing Bian⁵, Zhuo-Ren Wang⁵, Fei-Fei Cao^{1

3}, Yu-Guo Guo^{2

4}

Affiliations

¹ College of Science, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, P. R. China.
² CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Nanostructure and Nanotechnology, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (BNLMS), Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, 100190, P. R. China.
³ College of Resources and Environment, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, P. R. China.
⁴ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China.
⁵ Institute of Applied Mycology, Plant Science and Technology College, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, P. R. China.

PMID: 30515891
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201805134

Abstract

The growth of white-rot fungi is related to the superior infiltrability and biodegradability of hyphae on a lignocellulosic substrate. The superior biodegradability of fungi toward plant substrates affords tailored microstructures, which benefits subsequently high efficient carbonization and chemical activation. Here, the mechanism underlying the direct growth of mushrooms toward the lignocellulosic substrate is elucidated and a fungi-enabled method for the preparation of porous carbons with ultrahigh specific surface area (3439 m² g^-1 ) is developed. Such porous carbons could have potential applications in energy storage, environment treatment, and electrocatalysis. The present study reveals a novel pore formation mechanism in root-colonizing fungi and anticipates a valuable function for fungi in developing the useful porous carbons with a high specific surface area.

Keywords: electrocatalysis; energy storage; fungi; pollution remediation; porous carbon.

Abstract

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