Pollen-derived porous carbon with excellent photothermal performance for laser ignition application

Abstract

Porous biomass pollens were comprehensively investigated as promising candidates for cost-effective and high-performance photothermal carbon materials suitable for laser ignition applications. The present study involved the fabrication of porous carbon from biomass pollen, featuring regular pore/fold architectures, through a precisely controlled thermal treatment protocol conducted within an inert argon atmosphere. The thermal treatment regimen was meticulously fine-tuned to elucidate the effects of carbonization temperature on the morphological characteristics, compositional analysis, optical absorption, and photothermal properties of the resultant nanoparticles. Under optimal carbonization conditions, the as-prepared pollen-derived carbons retained the distinctive porous/folded surface morphology of the native pollen substrates, which was beneficial for enhanced light absorbance and photothermal activity. The optimized products exhibited an exceptional maximum temperature increment of 385°C under pulsed laser irradiation of 0.7 W. Furthermore, an extensive evaluation of three distinct pollen types confirmed the broad applicability of carbonization techniques to enhance the photothermal properties of pollen-derived materials.