Papers

20 results
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Article Tier 2

Upcycling Plastic Waste into High Value‐Added Carbonaceous Materials

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.

2021 Macromolecular Rapid Communications 92 citations
Article Tier 2

PPE Waste-Derived Carbon Materials for Energy Storage Applications via Carbonization Techniques

This review explores how discarded personal protective equipment such as face masks, generated in enormous quantities since the COVID-19 pandemic, can be converted into useful carbon materials for energy storage through carbonization techniques. Repurposing this PPE waste into battery and supercapacitor components could help address both the plastic pollution problem and the growing demand for energy storage materials.

2025 C – Journal of Carbon Research 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Single-Step Electrochemical Upcycling of PET: Waste to Value-Added Chemicals, Oral Presentation

Researchers developed a single-step electrochemical method to upcycle PET plastic waste into value-added chemicals and organic materials, targeting the over 70% of plastic that ends up in landfills or oceans where it breaks down into microplastics.

2024 ECS Meeting Abstracts
Article Tier 2

Upcycling of waste plastics: strategies, status-quo, and prospects

This review examines strategies for upcycling waste plastics into valuable products as an alternative to landfilling and incineration, which generate microplastics and carbon emissions respectively. Researchers survey chemical recycling methods including pyrolysis, gasification, and catalytic processes that can convert common plastics like PET, polyethylene, and polystyrene into fuels, chemicals, and new materials. The study highlights the urgent need for more effective recycling technologies to address the growing gap between plastic production and waste management capacity.

2024 Chinese Science Bulletin (Chinese Version) 3 citations
Article Tier 2

(Invited) Marine Plastic Waste-Based Supercapacitors for Saving Remote Island

This study explores repurposing marine plastic waste to construct supercapacitors for energy storage in remote island communities, addressing both plastic pollution and energy access challenges.

2024 ECS Meeting Abstracts
Article Tier 2

Strategies for Electrochemical Recycling of Plastic Polyethylene Terephthalate‐Derived Ethylene Glycol Into High‐Value Chemicals

This paper reviews new methods for recycling PET plastic waste, the most common plastic in bottles and packaging, using electricity from renewable sources. By converting PET-derived chemicals into high-value products through electrocatalysis, this approach could help reduce both plastic pollution and microplastic contamination in the environment.

2025 Advanced Energy Materials 20 citations
Article Tier 2

Carbon materials derived from single-use plastics (SUPs) and their applications in pollution mitigation: Challenges and perspectives

This review examines strategies for converting single-use plastic waste into value-added carbon-based materials through thermal, chemical, and catalytic transformation techniques including pyrolysis, carbonization, and chemical activation. The authors assess how these approaches address microplastic contamination risks while contributing to circular economy frameworks by repurposing non-degradable plastic residues.

2025 Environmental Surfaces and Interfaces
Article Tier 2

Sustainable Petrochemical Alternatives From Plastic Upcycling

This review examined pathways for upcycling plastic waste into sustainable petrochemical alternatives, addressing the poor end-of-life recovery prospects that allow carbon-rich plastics to degrade into microplastics in landfills and oceans. The paper assessed chemical and thermochemical conversion technologies that could turn plastic waste into feedstocks for the chemical industry.

2024 4 citations
Article Tier 2

Approaches for Management and Valorization of Non-Homogeneous, Non-Recyclable Plastic Waste

This review examined management and valorization strategies for non-homogeneous, non-recyclable plastic waste, evaluating chemical recycling, energy recovery, and upcycling approaches as pathways to reduce environmental plastic accumulation and recover value from difficult-to-process waste streams.

2022 International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 28 citations
Article Tier 2

Transforming a mixture of real post-consumer plastic waste into activated carbon for biogas upgrading

Researchers explored converting mixed post-consumer plastic waste into activated carbon through pyrolysis and chemical activation for use in biogas purification. The resulting activated carbon demonstrated effective carbon dioxide adsorption capacity comparable to commercial alternatives. The study suggests that transforming hard-to-recycle plastic waste into useful carbon materials could offer a circular economy solution for both plastic pollution and renewable energy production.

2024 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 13 citations
Article Tier 2

Materials challenges and opportunities to address growing micro/nanoplastics pollution: a review of thermochemical upcycling

This review examined thermochemical upcycling technologies including pyrolysis, gasification, and liquefaction as approaches to valorize micro- and nanoplastic waste, assessing the material challenges and opportunities for converting environmental plastic pollution into useful fuels or chemical feedstocks.

2022 Materials Today Sustainability 23 citations
Article Tier 2

Recycling Microplastics to Fabricate Anodes for Lithium‐Ion Batteries: From Removal of Environmental Troubles via Electrocoagulation to Useful Resources (Adv. Sci. 8/2023)

Researchers collected microplastics using electrocoagulation and then converted them into carbon-based anode materials for lithium-ion batteries. The approach removes environmental plastic pollution while creating functional battery components from the waste. This circular approach demonstrates a promising strategy for turning microplastic pollution into a useful resource.

2023 Advanced Science 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Polymers Recycling: Upcycling Techniques. an Overview

This paper is not about microplastics in a research sense; it is an overview of polymer recycling and upcycling techniques, mentioning microplastic accumulation briefly as motivation but not investigating microplastics directly.

2023 Journal of the Chilean Chemical Society 6 citations
Article Tier 2

Harvesting marine plastic pollutants-derived renewable energy: A comprehensive review on applied energy and sustainable approach.

This review summarized recent research on recovering renewable energy from marine plastic waste through biological, chemical, and thermal conversion processes, evaluating each pathway's carbon efficiency, global warming potential, and economic viability as part of a circular economy approach to plastic pollution.

2023 Journal of environmental management
Article Tier 2

Carbon nanotubes production from real-world waste plastics and the pyrolysis behaviour

Researchers produced carbon nanotubes from real-world waste plastics through pyrolysis, characterizing the thermal decomposition behavior of mixed plastic waste and demonstrating a valuable upcycling pathway for plastic pollution.

2023 Waste Management 49 citations
Article Tier 2

Low-cost activated carbon from the pyrolysis of post-consumer plastic waste and the application in CO2 capture

Researchers prepared low-cost activated carbon from char residue generated during the pyrolysis of post-consumer plastic waste and tested its application for CO2 capture. The study demonstrates that plastic waste pyrolysis byproducts can be repurposed into useful porous materials, offering a dual benefit of chemical recycling and carbon capture.

2023 Process Safety and Environmental Protection 77 citations
Article Tier 2

Hydrothermal carbonization of plastic waste: A review of its potential in alternative energy applications

Researchers reviewed how hydrothermal carbonization — a process that converts materials into a coal-like substance using heat and water under pressure — can transform plastic waste into useful products like solid fuels, catalysts, and materials for energy storage devices. While the technology is promising, challenges like variable plastic feedstock quality and scaling up production must be addressed before widespread commercial use.

2023 Fuel Communications 36 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastic Recovery and Conversion Pathways: The Most Recent Advancements in Technologies for the Generation of Renewable Energy

This review examines current technologies for recovering energy from microplastics, evaluating pyrolysis, gasification, electrochemical methods, and hybrid biomass-based approaches in terms of energy balance, carbon conversion, product composition, process efficiency, and scalability. The authors found pyrolysis to be the most scalable method, producing valuable oils and gases, but highlighted that all reviewed technologies face challenges handling the heterogeneous composition and small particle sizes characteristic of MP feedstocks.

2025 Energies
Article Tier 2

Valorization of plastic waste via chemical activation and carbonization into activated carbon for functional material applications

This review examines how waste plastics can be transformed into activated carbon through chemical activation and carbonization processes. Researchers analyzed various methods for converting different plastic types into porous carbon materials with practical applications. The findings suggest that turning plastic waste into activated carbon offers a valuable alternative to traditional disposal methods.

2024 RSC Applied Polymers 36 citations
Article Tier 2

Plastic-derived substrate-grown carbon nanotubes as freestanding electrode for hydrogen evolution in alkaline media

Plastic waste was converted into carbon nanotubes via pyrolysis and used as a high-performance electrode for hydrogen production, demonstrating a circular economy pathway that transforms plastic pollution into a clean energy material.

2023