Cigarettes: from sidewalk to supercapacitor

Asia – Cigarette stubs powering phones? It might seem a far-fetched idea but it’s perfectly possible, according to a team of scientists from South Korea. They were able to convert the much-littered stubs into a ‘high-performing’ material that can store energy for common household devices such as computers as well as even wind turbines.

The new material is meant to charge supercapacitors and is said to boast a superior performance compared to commercially available carbon, graphene and carbon nanotubes. Simultaneously, it will attack the problem of cigarette waste head on: more than 5.5 trillion cigarette butts are discarded worldwide every year.

′The used cigarette filter can be transformed into a porous carbon material that contains both mesopores and micropores spontaneously via a simple one-step process: pyrolysis,′ notes Jongheop Yi, co-author of a study on this topic and professor at Seoul National University. ′The unique self-developed pore structure allowed a favourable pathway for electrolyte permeation and contact probability, resulting in the extended rate capability for the supercapacitor.′

Tests to date have showed that stub-based carbon is capable of reproducing its electrochemical performance during the 6000 cycles required for charge and discharge measurements.

For more information, visit: www.useoul.edu