Biorefineries with the significant amounts of lignin as a by-product have a potential to increase business revenues by using this residue to produce high value-added materials. The carbon materials from biomass waste increases the profitability of the production of porous carbon used for sorbents and energy production. The purpose of this research is to study the chemical properties of lignin from "Sweetwoods" biorefinery as well as to characterize lignin carbonizates and activated carbons synthesized from them. This paper describes the effect of carbonization conditions (thermal or hydrothermal) on the properties of activated carbon material. It can be concluded that, depending on the carbonization method, the three-dimensional hierarchical porous structure of activated carbon materials based on "Sweetwoods" lignin, has micro- and mesopores of various sizes and can be used for number of purposes: both for high-quality sorbents, catalysts for electrochemical reduction reactions, providing sufficient space for ion mass transfer in electrodes for energy storage and transfer.
Keywords: alkali activation; biomass; mesopores; porosity; “Sweetwood” lignin.