Scalable slot-die coated flexible supercapacitors from upcycled PET face shields

Reddygunta, Kiran Kumar Reddy and Callander, Andrew and Šiller, Lidija and Faulds, Karen and Berlouis, Leonard and Ivaturi, Aruna (2024) Scalable slot-die coated flexible supercapacitors from upcycled PET face shields. RSC Advances, 14 (18). pp. 12781-12795. ISSN 2046-2069 (https://doi.org/10.1039/D2RA06809E)

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Abstract

Upcycling Covid19 plastic waste into valuable carbonaceous materials for energy storage applications is a sustainable and green approach to minimize the burden of waste plastic on the environment. Herein, we developed a facile single step activation technique for producing activated carbon consisting of spherical flower like carbon nanosheets and amorphous porous flakes from used PET [poly(ethylene terephthalate)] face shields for supercapacitor applications. The as-obtained activated carbon exhibited a high specific surface area of 1571 m2 g−1 and pore volume of 1.64 cm3 g−1. The specific capacitance of these carbon nanostructure-coated stainless steel electrodes reached 228.2 F g−1 at 1 A g−1 current density with excellent charge transport features and good rate capability in 1 M Na2SO4 aqueous electrolyte. We explored the slot-die coating technique for large-area coatings of flexible high-performance activated carbon electrodes with special emphasis on optimizing binder concentration. Significant improvement in electrochemical performance was achieved for the electrodes with 15 wt% Nafion concentration. The flexible supercapacitors fabricated using these electrodes showed high energy and power density of 21.8 W h kg−1 and 20 600 W kg−1 respectively, and retained 96.2% of the initial capacitance after 10 000 cycles at 2 A g−1 current density. The present study provides a promising sustainable approach for upcycling PET plastic waste for large area printable supercapacitors.

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