Improvement of mechanical property of biomass-derived porous carbon material through in situ growth of SiCnws and glucose-converted pyrolysed carbon

Biomass porous carbon materials have been widely favoured for their unique structure and properties. At present, most research has mainly focused on improving the functional performance of biomass porous carbon materials without taking into account the mechanical property of biomass porous carbon materials. In this paper, we present a processing method for improving the mechanical property of biomass porous carbon materials. An apple derived porous carbon material (PC) with a low density of 0.167 g/cm3 and compressive strength of 0.59 MPa was prepared by freeze-drying and high-temperature pyrolysis. Subsequently, the in situ growth of SiCnws and glucose-converted pyrolysed carbon were prepared via solid-vapor and PIP method to improve the microstructure and mechanical property of PC. Due to the reinforcing rib structure constructed by SiCnws and pyrolysed carbon, the enhanced porous carbon material displayed a density of 0.316 g/cm3 and a high compressive strength of 3.14 MPa.