(729f) Enhanced Electrochemical Performance of Waste Tyre Recycled Activated Carbon As an Anode in Li-Ion Battery

With the ever increasing global demand for energy supply, it has become imperative to address the issue of energy and environment sustainability. In this work, we present an effective synthetic procedure to obtain high purity activated carbon from pyrolitic tyre char and demonstrate its performance as a high capacity anode in Li-ion battery. Carbon obtained after pyrolysis of waste tire crumbs is first treated with concentrated HCl, followed by HF treatment which converts it to a high purity carbon black devoid of all metallic and sulphur impurities. The surface properties of the acid treated carbon is further tailored by activating it with KOH, resulting in  a high specific surface area of 870 m²/g  with a high  percentage of mesopores (avg pore size 3-5 nm). The morphology, structure and composition of the activated carbon have been studied by SEM, TEM, Raman, XRD, XPS and FT-IR techniques. Its electrochemical performance is analyzed by galvanostatic charge/discharge measurements at different current densities, cyclic voltammetry and impedance measurements. The activated carbon exhibits a first diacharge capacity of 880 mAh/g at 50 mA/ g current density, which is much greater than other (hard) carbon based anodes and more than twice that of commercial graphite anode. A high reversible capacity of ~ 620 mAh/g is maintained after 100 cycles with nearly 100% coloumbic efficiency. Our work opens a new avenue to tyre waste recycling as the carbon black processed by us exhibits enhanced electrochemical performance with potential application in energy storage devices.