Nickel-Ion Activating Discarded COVID-19 Medical Surgical Masks for Forming Carbon-Nickel Composite Nanowires and Using as a High-Performance Lithium Battery Anode.
Guoqing LiMengyue MaXuancheng ChenJiaqi ZhangYe HongYu HuanTao WeiPublished in: Energy & fuels : an American Chemical Society journal (2022)
With the prevalence of COVID-19, wearing medical surgical masks has become a requisite measure to protect against the invasion of the virus. Therefore, a huge amount of discarded medical surgical masks will be produced, which will become a potential hazard to pollute the environment and endanger the health of organisms without our awareness. Herein, a green and cost-effective way for the reasonable disposal of waste masks becomes necessary. In this work, we realized the transformation from waste medical surgical masks into high-quality carbon-nickel composite nanowires, which not only benefit the protection of the environment and ecosystem but also contribute to the realization of economic value. The obtained composite carbon-based materials demonstrate 70 S m -1 conductivity, 5.2 nm average pore diameters, 234 m 2 g -1 surface areas, and proper graphitization degree. As an anode material for lithium-ion batteries, the prepared carbon composite materials demonstrate a specific capacity of 420 mA h g -1 after 800 cycles at a current density of 0.2 A g -1 . It also displays good rate performance and decent cycling stability. Therefore, this study provides an approach to converting the discarded medical surgical masks into high-quality carbon nanowire anode materials to turn waste into treasure.
Keyphrases
- reduced graphene oxide
- healthcare
- coronavirus disease
- sars cov
- gold nanoparticles
- room temperature
- public health
- municipal solid waste
- climate change
- mental health
- ion batteries
- risk factors
- human health
- life cycle
- sewage sludge
- carbon nanotubes
- respiratory syndrome coronavirus
- high intensity
- solid state
- oxide nanoparticles
- ionic liquid