Green Chemistry and Technology

Biography

Dr. Alberto Tagliaferro is Associate Professor in Solid State Physics at Politecnico Torino. His research activity is mainly on carbon nano and microstructured materials, with particular focus on those from green sources. Raman characterization of such materials and their application in composites, sensors and energy are the main subjects of his current activity He has published more than 160 papers in International Journals and is Associate Editor for BioNanoScience (Springer)

Abstract

Development of industrial age technologies has raised many issues such as depletion of natural resource and environmental pollution. Waste management has became a mandatory problem to solve. However waste streams can also be considered as promising resource to produce new raw materials. Among all the available techniques, thermochemical processes play a great role as they are easily scalable and can be tailored to a wide range of applications. A very attractive thermochemical technique is pyrolysis and in particularly the pyrolytic treatment of lignocellulosic waste that leads to biochar production. Biochar is a cheap and easy-to-tune carbon material that has already found application as material for building insulation², waste water treatment³, solid fuel⁴ and electrocatalysis⁵. It has also been used as filler for composites production to enhance the mechanical and electronic properties. In this presentation, we are showing highlights about the use of biochar from several lignocellulosic waste streams (coffee residues, olive trunks, bamboo cuts) as filler for epoxy resin composites and as conductive carbon material for sensors and electroshielding applications.

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• ⁵ Yuan, Yong, et al. Sewage sludge biochar as an efficient catalyst for oxygen reduction reaction in an microbial fuel cell. Bioresource technology, 2013, 144: 115-120.