Mass production of hierarchically porous carbon nanosheets by carbonizing "real-world" mixed waste plastics toward excellent-performance supercapacitors

Yanliang Wen; Krzysztof Kierzek; Xuecheng Chen; Jiang Gong; Jie Liu; Ran Niu; Ewa Mijowska; Tao Tang

doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2019.03.006

Mass production of hierarchically porous carbon nanosheets by carbonizing "real-world" mixed waste plastics toward excellent-performance supercapacitors

Waste Manag. 2019 Mar 15:87:691-700. doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2019.03.006. Epub 2019 Mar 11.

Authors

Yanliang Wen¹, Krzysztof Kierzek², Xuecheng Chen³, Jiang Gong⁴, Jie Liu⁵, Ran Niu⁶, Ewa Mijowska⁷, Tao Tang⁸

Affiliations

¹ Nanomaterials Physicochemistry Department, Faculty of Chemical Technology and Engineering, West Pomeranian University of Technology, Szczecin, Piastów Ave. 42, 71-065 Szczecin, Poland; State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China.
² Faculty of Chemistry, Department of Polymer and Carbonaceous Materials, Wroclaw University of Technology, Wroclaw, Poland.
³ Nanomaterials Physicochemistry Department, Faculty of Chemical Technology and Engineering, West Pomeranian University of Technology, Szczecin, Piastów Ave. 42, 71-065 Szczecin, Poland; State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China. Electronic address: xchen@ciac.ac.cn.
⁴ Key Laboratory for Material Chemistry of Energy Conversion and Storage, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China. Electronic address: gongjiang@hust.edu.cn.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China.
⁶ Department of Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
⁷ Nanomaterials Physicochemistry Department, Faculty of Chemical Technology and Engineering, West Pomeranian University of Technology, Szczecin, Piastów Ave. 42, 71-065 Szczecin, Poland.
⁸ State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China. Electronic address: ttang@ciac.ac.cn.

PMID: 31109571
DOI: 10.1016/j.wasman.2019.03.006

Abstract

Recently, sustainable development and serious energy crisis called for appropriate managements for the large number of municipal and industrial waste plastics as well as the development of low-cost, advanced materials for energy storage. However, the complexity of waste plastics significantly hampers the application of ever used methods, and little attention is paid to the utilization of waste plastics-derived carbon in energy storage. Herein, porous carbon nanosheets (PCNSs) was produced by catalytic carbonization of "real-world" mixed waste plastics on organically-modified montmorillonite (OMMT) and the subsequent KOH activation. PCNSs was featured on hierarchically micro-/mesoporous structures with the pore size distribution centered on 0.57, 1.42 and 3.63 nm and partially exfoliated graphitic layers, and showed a high specific surface area of 2198 m² g^-1 and a large pore volume of 3.026 cm³ g^-1. Benefiting from these extraordinary properties, PCNSs displayed a superior performance for supercapacitors with high specific capacitances approaching 207 and 120 F g^-1 at a current density of 0.2 A g^-1 in aqueous and organic electrolytes, respectively. Importantly, when the current density increased to 10 A g^-1, the specific capacitances remained at 150 F g^-1 (72.5%) and 95 F g^-1 (79.2%) in aqueous and organic electrolytes, respectively. The outstanding rate capability of PCNSs was in sharp contrast to the performance of traditional activated carbons. This work not only provides a potential way to recycle mixed waste plastics, but also puts forward a facile sustainable approach for the large-scale production of PCNSs as a promising candidate for supercapacitors.

Keywords: Carbon nanosheet; Carbonization; Hierarchical pore; Supercapacitor; Waste plastic.

MeSH terms

Carbon*
Electric Capacitance
Graphite*
Plastics
Porosity

Substances

Plastics
Carbon
Graphite