Fabrication and evaluation of carbon black of waste Tyre-derived activated carbon electrodes for enhanced supercapacitor performance

Abstract

The growing demand for energy and the necessity for environmentally sustainable solutions necessitate the development of innovative materials. Activated carbon, widely used for supercapacitor electrodes, is traditionally derived from petroleum-based sources. This research presents a novel method for synthesizing activated carbon from waste tyres, offering a sustainable alternative additionally, it also incorporates a method for recycling the waste carbon materials. The waste tyre carbon was collected and chemically activated using an aqueous zinc chloride solution, followed by drying and calcination at different temperature. The electrochemical performance of the activated carbon electrodes was tested in both aqueous and ionic liquid electrolytes. The results demonstrated that the activated carbon electrodes achieved a specific capacitance of 1478.80 F/g at 100mV/s in an aqueous electrolyte. Additionally, in an ionic liquid electrolyte, the electrodes exhibited an energy density of 273.55 Wh/kg. These findings validate the effectiveness of waste tyre-derived activated carbon as a high-performance, sustainable material for energy storage applications, particularly in supercapacitors.