Changde Ma, Jiakang Min, Jiang Gong, Xiaoguang Liu, Xueying Mu, Xuecheng Chen*, Tao Tang*, Ewa Mijowska
Sustainable conversion of polystyrene waste into 3D hierarchically porous carbon for high-performance supercapacitors. Chemosphere (2020) Accept.
Polystyrene (PS) is usually discarded as a solid waste after a short lifespan. Thus the disposal of waste PS is an inevitably worldwide issue because of their stable and non-biodegradable nature. Herein, a facile method was proposed to carbonize PS waste into novel three-dimensional (3D) hierarchically porous carbon using Fe2O3 particles as both catalyst and template. Furthermore, KOH activation was applied to generate microporous and mesopores on the wall of macropores. As a result, the obtained 3D hierarchically porous carbon exhibits a high specific capacitance of 284.1 F/g at 0.5 A/g and good rate performance of 198 F/g at 20 A/g in a three-electrode device. Moreover, the assembled symmetrical capacitor displays a high energy density of 19.2 W h/kg at the power density of 200.7 W/kg in aqueous electrolyte. Therefore, the present research develops a sustainable way to recycle waste plastics into 3D hierarchically porous carbon for supercapacitors.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653520309486