Removal of Microplastics via Electrocoagulation: From Plastic Waste to Useful Resources for Lithium?ion Batteries

초록

As industrial technology is highly developed, plastic materials are used in various industrial fields, and their usage is increasing year by year. As a result, more than 150 million tons of plastic waste are discarded annually in landfills or the natural environment[1]. In particular, plastic waste flowing into the sea is decomposed into microplastics and is a severe source of pollution that threatens the marine ecosystem. In order to solve this problem, a step of treating microplastics has been introduced in various existing water treatment processes. However, disadvantages such as longer processing times and the generation of secondary contaminants during processing remain challenges to be overcome. In this study, we investigate the straightforward strategy to precipitate the microplastics into flocs covered with uniform iron oxide nanoparticles through electrocoagulation under diverse environments with different size of microplastics and concentration of NaCl solution, and subsequently separate them via magnetic method. Furthermore, iron oxide nanoparticles uniformly surrounded by amorphous carbon layer are obtained through heat treatment process under Ar atmosphere using microplastics as a carbon precursor. The proposed composite exhibits excellent electrochemical performances as anode materials for lithium?ion batteries (LIBs) showing negative fading phenomenon. This research offers the insight into clean and sustainable process that can be applied into energy applications with appropriate post treatments to form energy materials, simultaneously remove microplastic in the medium.