sciencetech-blog

comments

Discarded cigarette butts are a blight on city streets – but now one group of scientists has come up with a way to reuse them to save the environment.

Researchers from South Korea believe they can convert cigarette filters into a material that could be used by computers, electrical vehicles and wind turbines to store energy.

This material can be used to coat the electrodes of supercapacitors, which are components that can store extremely large amounts of electrical energy.

It is hoped the material extracted from cigarette filters can be used to coat the electrodes of supercapacitors - electrochemical components that can store extremely large amounts of electrical energy

The researchers claim the material's performance is even better that the commercially available carbon, graphene and carbon nanotubes currently used to do the same job.

Worldwide, around 5.6 trillion used-cigarettes, or 766,571 tonnes, of used cigarettes are flicked onto pavements each year. That's equivalent to the weight of 380 London Eyes.

Co-author of the study Professor Jongheop Yi, from Seoul National University, said: 'Our study has shown that used-cigarette filters can be transformed into a high-performing carbon-based material using a simple one step process, which simultaneously offers a green solution to meeting the energy demands of society.

Researchers from South Korea believe they can convert cigarette ends into a material that could be used by computers, electrical vehicles and wind turbines to store energy more effectively than traditional materials

'Numerous countries are developing strict regulations to avoid the trillions of toxic and non-biodegradable used-cigarette filters that are disposed of into the environment each year—our method is just one way of achieving this.'

Carbon is the most popular material that supercapacitors are composed of, due to its low cost, high surface area, high electrical conductivity and long term stability.

Scientists around the world are currently working towards improving the characteristics of supercapacitors - such as energy density, power density and cycle stability - while also trying to reduce production costs.

In their study, the researchers found that the cellulose acetate fibres that cigarette filters are mostly composed of could be transformed into a carbon-based material by a burning technique called pyrolysis.

The resulting carbon-based material contained a number of tiny pores, increasing its performance as a supercapacitive material.

'A high-performing supercapacitor material should have a large surface area, which can be achieved by incorporating a large number of small pores into the material,' said Professor Yi.

'A combination of different pore sizes ensures that the material has high power densities, which is an essential property in a supercapacitor for the fast charging and discharging.'

Once created, the carbon-based material stored a higher amount of electrical energy than commercially available carbon.