According to foreign media reports, supercapacitors have incredible potential for energy storage, and the ability to charge and discharge almost instantly is one of its main selling points. Scientists at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) are providing this possibility for key components of these next-generation devices in the form of nanomaterials made from recyclable plastic waste.
This breakthrough came from a team of engineers led by Cengiz Ozkan of UCR, who has been researching new nanoscale materials for many years to help make supercapacitors a viable energy storage option. Previously, Ozkan and her colleagues had made progress in materials ranging from graphene to glass bottles, but their latest findings focused on plastic waste, one of the biggest environmental problems we face.
The team first used plastic bottle fragments made of polyethylene terephthalate plastic or PET. These bottles are dissolved in a solvent and transformed into microscopic fibers using a technique called electrospinning, which is then converted into carbon in a furnace. Then the material is mixed with a binder and a conductive agent, and then it is made into a double-layer capacitor similar to a coin battery shape. Tests on the new electrode material in this configuration show that it can fully function as a component of a supercapacitor.
"At UCR, we have taken the first step in recycling plastic waste into rechargeable energy storage devices," said study first author and doctoral student Arash Mirjalili. "We believe that this work has environmental and economic advantages, and our methods can bring opportunities for future research and development."
Although supercapacitors charge faster than lithium batteries, they do not store as much energy as lithium batteries. Therefore, although they can allow electric cars to be charged in minutes instead of hours, or mobile phones or laptops can do the same, the energy storage architectures that are widely used today will still have a place. But the team believes that the method used here can also be modified to improve the performance of these lithium batteries.
"The upgrading cycle of PET plastic waste for energy storage applications can be considered the holy grail of green manufacturing of electrode materials using sustainable waste resources," Cengiz Ozkan said. "The demonstration role of this new type of electrode in the manufacture of supercapacitors will be applied in a new generation of lithium ion batteries in the future, so stay tuned."
The research results were published in the "Energy Storage" magazine.
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