Recycled Waste Paper- An Inexpensive Carbon Material for Supercapacitor Applications

Abstract

The present study presents the current status of research into the production of active carbons from environmental applications using waste newspaper. A number of studies have been performed to investigate the pyrolysis of waste paper ash to carbon gel.Although several studies report the production of carbon from waste tyre, bamboo, coconut shell, this study is first of its kind that for the first time, the waste newspapers have been used as a raw material for supercapacitor electrodes. A cheap raw material, and a simple method of preparation make this carbon gel more economically attractive. By carbonizing a waste paper a new carbon-carbon composite as electrode material was prepared through RF gel. The surface morphology and electrochemical characteristics of the carbon composite were investigated by Scanning Electron Microscopy, Cyclic Voltammetry, Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and galvanostatic charge-discharge cycle tests with various current densities. The SEM study reveals that the connectivity between the grains increases during cycling thus enhances the cyclic stasitity. The CV’s suggests that there is simultaneous redox and capacitive behavior and these behaviors are highly reversible even after 8 lakh cycles. The reversibility was still maintained even in the range – 3 V to + 3 V. The charge/discharge cycle tests reveal the cycle stasitity and delivered more then 8 lakh cycles at 100 mA/cm2. The maximum specific capacitance of 300 F/g was obtained at 150 mA/cm2 current density. These results imply that this newspaper based carbon gel be used as potential candidate for supercapacitors.