Trash to Treasure: Transforming Waste Polystyrene Cups into Negative Electrode Materials for Sodium Ion Batteries

Abstract

ABSTRCT: Modern society generates a huge amount of plastic wastes that are posing potential disasters to our environment and society. For example, waste polystyrene (PS), such as used PS cups and packing materials, is mainly disposed into landfills. It is very challenging to recycle PS economically. PS cannot be carbonized under conventional conditions, because PS is completely decomposed into toxic gases at moderate temperature instead of carbonization. Here, we demonstrated a facile procedure to transform waste PS cups collected from a local coffee shop into disordered carbon in a sealed reactor at moderate temperature but under high pressure. The as-obtained disordered carbon demonstrated interesting electrochemical characteristics for reversible storage of sodium ions. A highly reversible capacity of 116 mAh g -1 could be achieved for at least 80 cycles. Our preliminary results demonstrated that the trash of waste PS cups could be facilely transformed into treasure of promising negative electrode materials for sodium-ion batteries, offering an alternative and sustainable approach to manage the waste PS issue.

Porous Carbon Nanosheets Prepared from Plastic Wastes for Supercapacitors

“…Plastics buried in landfills release toxic substances into soil and water, and plastics incinerated produce poisonous gases and carbon dioxide. 3,4 It is significant for ecological sustainable development and protection of the environment to search for alternative treatments for waste plastics.…”

Organocatalysis for depolymerisation

“…However, some attempts in depolymerising polyolefins have been undertaken, giving different kind of products, from a mixture of light alkanes, to novel materials, and among them, organocatalysts have been an even more rare methodology. [62][63][64][65][66] Firstly, polyisoprene-based materials, which are more accessible owing to the reactivity of the CvC double bond that remains in the polymer structure, have been depolymerised with m-chlorobenzoic acid, 67 phenylhrazine, 68 or potassium persulfate. 69 In all cases, the molecular weight of the polymer decreased drastically, producing telechelic oligomers as degradation products.…”

Current approaches to waste polymer utilization and minimization: a review

“…Using a simple technique, Fonseca et al . transformed waste polystyrene cups into negative electrode materials to be used in sodium ion batteries …”

“…69 Using a simple technique, Fonseca et al transformed waste polystyrene cups into negative electrode materials to be used in sodium ion batteries. 70 There exist various materials used to reinforce asphalt. Lately, protecting the environment has become a crucial issue all around the world.…”