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Upcycling Plastic Waste into High Value‐Added Carbonaceous Materials

Macromolecular Rapid Communications 2021 92 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count. Score: 55 ? 0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.
Jiho Choi, Inchan Yang, Sung‐Soo Kim, Se Youn Cho, Sungho Lee

Summary

This review examines methods for converting plastic waste into high-value carbonaceous materials through upcycling techniques. Researchers surveyed approaches for transforming discarded plastics into products such as carbon fibres, water purification absorbents, and energy storage electrodes. The study suggests that upcycling plastic waste into carbon-based materials offers a practical alternative to conventional disposal methods like landfilling and incineration.

Abstract Even though plastic improved the human standard of living, handling the plastic waste represents an enormous challenge. It takes more than 100 years to decompose discarded or buried waste plastics. Microplastics are one of the causes of significantly pervasive environmental pollutants. The incineration of plastic waste generates toxic gases, underscoring the need for new approaches, in contrast to conventional strategies that are required for recycling plastic waste. Therefore, several studies have attempted to upcycle plastic waste into high value‐added products. Converting plastic waste into carbonaceous materials is an excellent upcycling technique due to their diverse practical applications. This review summarizes various studies dealing with the upcycling of plastic waste into carbonaceous products. Further, this review discusses the applications of carbonaceous products synthesized from plastic waste including carbon fibers, absorbents for water purification, and electrodes for energy storage. Based on the findings, future directions for effective upcycling of plastic waste into carbonaceous materials are suggested.

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