About this Abstract |
Meeting |
MS&T24: Materials Science & Technology
|
Symposium
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Energy Materials for Sustainable Development
|
Presentation Title |
Synthesizing Highly Crystalline Graphite Powder from Bulk Polyethylene Waste for Lithium-Ion Battery Anodes |
Author(s) |
Ngoc Tien Huynh, Yuan Gao, YunYang Lee, Ki-Joong Kim, Viet Hung Nguyen, Congjun Wang, Christopher S. Matranga |
On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Ngoc Tien Huynh |
Abstract Scope |
Upcycling plastic waste into graphite can potentially be used, in conjunction with other methods, to manage existing waste materials and diversify graphite supply chains. However, synthesizing large quantities of crystalline graphite powder from plastic waste, particularly polyethylene (PE), remains a challenge because PE decomposes into light gases during thermal processing, and simple methods do not exist at any appreciable size scale to address this challenge. In this work, a method is developed for air processing bulk forms of PE waste to create a stable carbon char that does not readily decompose during high-temperature processing. The PE-derived graphite powder showed excellent electrochemical performance as an anode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) with a capacity of up to 302 mAh/g at 0.5 discharge/charge cycles per hour (0.5 C) and capacity retention of 100% after 415 cycles. This method illustrates there are opportunities for upcycling PE waste to produce LIB grade graphite. |