Chemical Recycling of Consumer-Grade Black Plastic into Electrically Conductive Carbon Nanotubes
Journal article, 2019

The global plastics crisis has recently focused scientists' attention on finding technical solutions for the ever-increasing oversupply of plastic waste. Black plastic is one of the greatest contributors to landfill waste, because it cannot be sorted using industrial practices based on optical reflection. However, it can be readily upcycled into carbon nanotubes (CNTs) using a novel liquid injection reactor (LIR) chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. In this work, CNTs were formed using black and white polystyrene plastics to demonstrate that off-the-shelf materials can be used as feedstock for growth of CNTs. Scanning electron microscopy analysis suggests the CNTs from plastic sources improve diameter distribution homogeneity, with slightly increased diameters compared with control samples. Slight improvements in quality, as determined by Raman spectroscopy of the D and G peaks, suggest that plastics could lead to increased quality of CNTs. A small device was constructed as a demonstrator model to increase impact and public engagement.

chemical recycling

circular economy

carbon nanotube

conduction

carbon wires

Author

Ali Hedayati

Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Energy Technology

Swansea University

Chris J. Barnett

Swansea University

Gemma Swan

Swansea University

Alvin Orbaek White

Swansea University

C - Journal of Carbon Research

2311-5629 (eISSN)

Vol. 5 2 UNSP 32

Subject Categories

Polymer Technologies

Other Physics Topics

Condensed Matter Physics

DOI

10.3390/c5020032

More information

Latest update

1/24/2020