University Researchers Convert Packing Peanuts To Battery Electrodes

If you work somewhere that receives lots of packages, you are familiar with the massive quantities of packing peanuts that are shipped around the world each day. A group of researchers at Purdue University have outlined a way to make something useful out of all those packing peanuts that typically just end up in trash bins around the world each day.

The researchers have shown how to convert those waste packing peanuts into high-performance carbon electrodes to be used in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. The electrodes made in this process outperform conventional graphite electrodes and the method is an environmentally friendly way to reuse waste.

The packing peanuts are used to make anodes for batteries by turning them into carbon-nanoparticle anodes using polystyrene packing peanuts and microsheet anodes made from starch-based packing material. Not only does the new technology have the potential to reduce the amount of packing peanuts sent to landfills each year, the anodes perform better than the anodes used in the rechargeable batteries previously.

These anodes can charge faster and deliver a higher specific capacity compared to commercially available graphite anodes according to the researchers. Right now only about 10% of packing peanuts are recycled. The process for turning the peanuts into anodes requires the material to be heated to between 500 and 900 degrees Celsius in a furnace under inert atmosphere with the presence or absence of a transition metal salt catalyst. In testing batteries made with the anode sheets were charge cycled over 300 times without significant capacity loss.

SOURCE: Phys.org