PROCESSING NATURAL BIOMASS TO HIERARCHICAL POROUS CARBON VIA A CHEMICAL FREE APPROACH

Speaker: Dr. Jiahua Zhu

Date/Time/Location: Thursday, March 3, 2016 from 12-1 pm in Whitby Hall, room 211

Carbon with mesoporous structure attracted great interests since it has been demonstrated efficient adsorbent for pollutants removal from water and excellent catalyst support for chemical reactions. This work presents a new approach to fabricate mesoporous carbon. The elucidation of mesopore formation directly from raw biomass will pave the road to understand, design and fabricate functional porous carbons for adsorption and generate impact in other related fields such as catalysis and energy storage. The “green” feature of this technology is expected to revolutionize conventional mesoporous carbon manufacturing technology with significantly reduced cost and environmental impact.

Dr. Jiahua Zhu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Akron. Dr. Zhu received his Ph.D. degree of Chemical Engineering from Lamar University in 2013. Dr. Zhu’s current research interest covers the fundamental study of multifunctional polymer- and carbon-based nanocomposites and explores their applications in emerging fields such as heat transport, energy storage, environmental remediation, etc.

Please join us to learn more about Dr. Zhu’s new research. Feel free to bring your lunch!

Questions? Contact RschSrvsGA8@uakron.edu