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Waste-based nanoarchitectonics with face masks as valuable starting material for high-performance supercapacitors
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Researchers carbonized and KOH-activated surgical face mask waste to create microporous carbon electrode materials with surface areas of 460-969 square meters per gram for use in supercapacitors. The approach converts a major COVID-19 waste stream that releases microplastic fibers during environmental degradation into a high-value energy storage material.
Surgical face masks waste is a source of microplastics (polymer fibres) and inorganic and organic compounds potentially hazardous for aquatic organisms during degradation in water. The monthly use of face masks in the world is about 129 billion for 7.8 billion people. Therefore, in this contribution the utilization of hazardous surgical face masks waste for fabrication of carbon-based electrode materials via KOH-activation and carbonization was investigated. The micro-mesoporous materials were obtained with specific surface areas in the range of 460 - 969 m2/g and a total pore volume of 0.311 - 0.635 cm3/g. The optimal sample showed superior electrochemical performance as an electrode material in supercapacitor in the three-electrode system, attaining 651.1F/g at 0.1 Ag-1 and outstanding capacitance retention of 98 % after a test cycle involving 50'000 cycles. It should be emphasized that capacitance retention is one of the most crucial requirements for materials used as the electrodes in the supercapacitor devices. In this strategy, potentially contaminated face masks, common pandemic waste, is recycled into highly valuable carbon material which can serve in practical applications overcoming the global energy crisis. What is more, all microorganisms, including coronaviruses that may be on/in the masks, are completely inactivated during KOH-activation and carbonization.
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