Carbonization of Selected Biological Materials, Trends, and Perspectives

The exploration of new materials as well as methods and sources of their production is a constantly growing trend in both scientific and industrial directions. One such method is carbonization, which has attracted a lot of attention over the past decades. Carbonization is the process of preparation of 3D carbonaceous materials with unique properties by thermal treatments with the exclusion of oxygen. A higher specific surface area characterizes the obtained nanoporous carbon materials compared to their precursors, and, consequently, they can be used in such fields as biotechnology, electrochemistry, or electronic industry. Special attention has been directed to the carbonization of nanoorganized biological materials due to their extensive composition and unique hierarchical structure. This review aims to provide insight into the examples of carbonization of selected biomaterials such as polysaccharides (cellulose, chitin) and proteins (keratin, spongin, silk) evidenced by excellent and successful examples from the recent literature. In addition, this work highlights the most significant aspects of diverse experiments, allowing getting inspiration for fields such as materials science and well extreme biomimetics.