Nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbons from used cigarette filters for supercapacitors

• Published in: Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers Vol. 95; pp. 315 - 323
• Main Authors: Xiong, Qiancheng, Bai, Qiuhong, Li, Cong, Li, Dongli, Miao, Xiaojing, Shen, Yehua, Uyama, Hiroshi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.02.2019
• Subjects: Composite; Polypyrrole; Porous structure; Supercapacitor; Used cigarette filter; Supercapacitor; Porous structure; Used cigarette filter; Composite; Polypyrrole
• ISSN: 1876-1070; 1876-1089
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jtice.2018.07.019

•It fabricated nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbons from used cigarette filters.•The as-obtained carbon material had a large specific surface area (3420 m2/g).•The formed carbon showed large specific capacitance and good capacitance retention.•It affords a new way to reduce of environmental pollution by used cigarette filters. Millions of tons of used cigarette filters (UCF) are worldwide discarded in the environment as toxic waste. This study provides a new application of UCF for energy storage in order to contribute to solution to environmental concerns by UCF. We have developed a facile method to fabricate nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbons by a combination of UCF and polypyrrole (PPy). The carbonization and activation of the as-obtained composite by KOH afforded the carbon material of very high surface area (3420 m2/g) with micro-, meso-, and macroporous structures. The nitrogen content measured by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was 2.34%, which is derived from PPy. The formed carbon showed large specific capacitance of 263 F/g at 1 A/g and good capacitance retention of 90% even after 5000 cycles at the current density of 5 A/ g. These excellent data are owing to the 3D hierarchical porous structure and nitrogen-doped functionality of the present carbon and UCF is regarded as a potential candidate of a carbon precursor for high-performance supercapacitors. Furthermore, this study affords a new way to recycle UCF with valuable applications, contributing to reduction of environmental pollution by UCF. [Display omitted] The present study provides a novel material design of nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbons for the development of stable and high capacitive supercapacitor electrode materials via a facile method from a composite consisting of used cigarette filters and polypyrrole, which contributes to a new recycling of used cigarette filters to solve the environmental concern.