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Hemp Hurd Derived Biocarbon Materials: Investigating the Effect of Pyrolysis Temperature on the Physicochemical Properties towards High Electrical Conductivity

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Abstract

Hemp hurd, which is the major byproduct produced during the extraction of its bast fiber was effectively converted into carbonaceous materials at 400, 500, 700, and 900 °C. The influence of pyrolysis temperature on the physiochemical properties of carbonaceous materials such as elemental composition, ash content, chemical functionality, graphitic content, thermal stability, surface morphology, and particle size, were investigated. The obtained features were then correlated with the electrical conductivity of the produced biocarbon. It was determined that the functional groups present in the biocarbon materials synthesised at lower temperatures (400 and 500 °C) almost disappeared for the biocarbon pyrolyzed at higher temperatures (700 and 900 °C). Raman analysis reveals that the ID/IG ratio of the biocarbon decreases with increased carbonization temperature. This indicates the formation of graphitized carbon clusters at higher temperatures and influences the superior electrical conductivity. In addition, the biocarbon carbonized at 900 °C exhibited the highest thermal stability, carbon content, and graphitic content when compared with their respective low-temperature counterparts. Increasing graphitic nature of the biocarbon materials during the high temperature carbonization along with the decrement of oxygen containing surface functional groups resulted in increased electron transport, which resulted in the biocarbon carbonized at 900 °C having the highest electrical conductivity of 15 S/m.

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Data Availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was financially supported by (i) the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA)/University of Guelph– Bioeconomy for Industrial Uses Research Program (Project Nos. 030699 and 100038), (ii) the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Canada Research Chair (CRC) program (Project No. 460788), and (iii) the NSERC Discovery Grants (Project No. 401111); and (iii) Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC) (Project No. 056369). This research has also benefited from the facility funding to the BDDC supported by FedDev Ontario; OMAFRA; Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI); Federal Post- Secondary Institutions Strategic Investment Fund (SIF), Bank of Montreal (BMO) and University of Guelph’s Alumni.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bioproducts Discovery and Development Centre, Department of Plant Agriculture, Crop Science Building, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada

    Hugh MacFarlane, Zavier Blackman, Amar K. Mohanty, Arturo Rodriguez-Uribe, Neelima Tripathi & Manjusri Misra

  2. School of Engineering, Thornborough Building, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada

    Hugh MacFarlane, Zavier Blackman, Amar K. Mohanty, Arturo Rodriguez-Uribe, Neelima Tripathi & Manjusri Misra

  3. Sustainable Materials and Nanotechnology Lab, Department of Physics, V. H. N. S. N. College (Autonomous), Virudhunagar, Tamil Nadu, 626 001, India

    Singaravelu Vivekanandhan

  4. Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Guelph, ON, N1G 4Y2, Canada

    Mahendra Thimmanagari

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  1. Hugh MacFarlane
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Contributions

Hugh MacFarlane: Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing– original draft. Singaravelu Vivekanandhan: Investigation, Validation, Formal analysis, Writing– original draft. Zavier Blackman: Methodology, Investigation, Writing– review & editing. Amar K. Mohanty: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Validation, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Supervision, Writing– review & editing. Arturo Rodriguez-Uribe: Methodology, Writing– review & editing. Neelima Tripathi: Methodology, Writing– review & editing. Mahendra Thimmanagari: Writing– review & editing. Manjusri Misra: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Validation, Resources, Visualization, Project administration, Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing– review & editing.

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Correspondence to Amar K. Mohanty or Manjusri Misra.

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MacFarlane, H., Vivekanandhan, S., Blackman, Z. et al. Hemp Hurd Derived Biocarbon Materials: Investigating the Effect of Pyrolysis Temperature on the Physicochemical Properties towards High Electrical Conductivity. Waste Biomass Valor (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-025-02940-x

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