Upcycling of polyurethane waste by mechanochemistry: synthesis of N-doped porous carbon materials for supercapacitor applications

Christina Schneidermann; Pascal Otto; Desirée Leistenschneider; Sven Grätz; Claudia Eßbach; Lars Borchardt

doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.157

Upcycling of polyurethane waste by mechanochemistry: synthesis of N-doped porous carbon materials for supercapacitor applications

Beilstein J Nanotechnol. 2019 Aug 6:10:1618-1627. doi: 10.3762/bjnano.10.157. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Christina Schneidermann^#¹, Pascal Otto^#¹, Desirée Leistenschneider², Sven Grätz³, Claudia Eßbach¹, Lars Borchardt^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Technische Universität Dresden, Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Bergstraße 66, 01069 Dresden, Germany.
² University of Alberta, Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, 12-340 Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering, 9211 - 116 Street, AB T6G 1H9 Edmonton, Canada.
³ Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Universitätsstrasse 150, 44801 Bochum, Germany.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

We developed an upcycling process of polyurethane obtaining porous nitrogen-doped carbon materials that were applied in supercapacitor electrodes. In detail, a mechanochemical solvent-free one-pot synthesis is used and combined with a thermal treatment. Polyurethane is an ideal precursor already containing nitrogen in its backbone, yielding nitrogen-doped porous carbon materials with N content values of 1-8 wt %, high specific surface area values of up to 2150 m²·g^-1 (at a N content of 1.6 wt %) and large pore volume values of up to 0.9 cm³·g^-1. The materials were tested as electrodes for supercapacitors in aqueous 1 M Li₂SO₄ electrolyte (100 F·g^-1), organic 1 M TEA-BF₄ (ACN, 83 F·g^-1) and EMIM-BF₄ (70 F·g^-1).

Keywords: mechanochemistry; polyurethane; porous carbon; supercapacitor; waste.