Building a Bridge from Papermaking to Solar Fuels

Zaiyong Jiang; Xinhan Zhang; Wei Sun; Deren Yang; Paul N Duchesne; Yugang Gao; Zeyan Wang; Tingjiang Yan; Zhimin Yuan; Guihua Yang; Xingxiang Ji; Jiachuan Chen; Baibiao Huang; Geoffrey A Ozin

doi:10.1002/anie.201909222

Building a Bridge from Papermaking to Solar Fuels

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2019 Oct 14;58(42):14850-14854. doi: 10.1002/anie.201909222. Epub 2019 Sep 3.

Authors

Zaiyong Jiang^{1

2}, Xinhan Zhang¹, Wei Sun^{2

3}, Deren Yang³, Paul N Duchesne², Yugang Gao⁴, Zeyan Wang⁴, Tingjiang Yan², Zhimin Yuan¹, Guihua Yang¹, Xingxiang Ji¹, Jiachuan Chen¹, Baibiao Huang⁴, Geoffrey A Ozin²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Biobased Material and Green Papermaking, Qilu University of Technology, Shandong Academy of Sciences, Jinan, 250353, P. R. China.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, 80 St. George St., Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3H6, Canada.
³ State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310027, P. R. China.
⁴ State Key Lab of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan, 250100, China.

PMID: 31410950
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201909222

Abstract

Black liquor, an industrial waste product of papermaking, is primarily used as a low-grade combustible energy source. Despite its high lignin content, the potential utility of black liquor as a feedstock in products manufacturing, remains to be exploited. Demonstrated here in is the use of black liquor as a primary feed-stock for synthesizing graphene quantum dots that exhibit both up-conversion and photoluminescence when excited using visible/near-infrared radiation, thereby enabling the photosensitization of ultraviolet-absorbing TiO₂ nanosheets. In addition, these graphene quantum dots can trap photo-generated electrons to realize the effective separation of electron-hole pairs. Together, these two processes facilitate the solar-powered generation of H₂ from H₂ O, and CO from H₂ O-CO₂ , using broadband solar radiation.

Keywords: black liquor; graphene quantum dots; papermaking; photocatalytic CO2 reduction; solar fuels.

Abstract

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