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Conversion of waste plastic into ordered mesoporous carbon for electrochemical applications

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Abstract

The excessive use of plastic, especially polystyrene (PS), has caused serious environmental pollution. The efficient utilization of plastics and the conversion of plastics into value-added carbon materials are the concerns of researchers. Herein, we propose novel “pyrolysis–deposition” method to convert one popular plastic substance, PS, into ordered mesoporous carbons (OMCs). During the synthesis process, PS is pyrolyzed into small organic gases under high temperature, which is then adsorbed through capillary adsorption into the mesoporous of SBA-15 in the presence of catalyst. The obtained OMCs have high specific surface area, uniform pore size, and ordered pore structure. The OMCs exhibit specific capacitance of 118 F/g at a current density of 0.2 A/g and electrochemical stability of 87.2% at a current density of 2 A/g after 5000 cycles. The pyrolysis–deposition strategy provides a new idea to convert waste plastics into high-performance carbon materials for electrochemical applications.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21676070), Hebei Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. B2015208109), Hebei Training Program for Talent Project (Grant No. A201500117), Hebei One Hundred-Excellent Innovative Talent Program (III) (SLRC2017034), Hebei Science and Technology Project (Grant Nos. 17214304D and 16214510D), and Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Hebei University of Science and Technology, Shijiazhuang, 050018, China

    Kehan Liang, Lei Liu, Wei Wang, Yifeng Yu, Yuying Wang, Lili Zhang, Chang Ma & Aibing Chen

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  1. Kehan Liang
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  2. Lei Liu
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  3. Wei Wang
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  4. Yifeng Yu
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  5. Yuying Wang
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  6. Lili Zhang
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  7. Chang Ma
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  8. Aibing Chen
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Correspondence to Aibing Chen.

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Liang, K., Liu, L., Wang, W. et al. Conversion of waste plastic into ordered mesoporous carbon for electrochemical applications. Journal of Materials Research 34, 941–949 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2018.493

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