title: Recycling supercapacitors based on shredding and mild thermal treatment.
abstract: Supercapacitors are widely used in electric and hybrid vehicles, wind farm and low-power equipment due to their high specific power density and huge number of charge-discharge cycles. Waste supercapacitors should be recycled according to EU directive 2002/96/EC on waste electric and electronic equipment. This paper describes a recycling approach for end-of-life supercapacitors based on shredding and mild thermal treatment. At first, supercapacitors are shredded using a Retsch cutting mill. The shredded mixture is then undergone thermal treatment at 200°C to recycle the organic solvent contained in the activated carbon electrodes. After the thermal treatment, the mixture is roughly separated using a fluidized bed method to remove the aluminium foil particles and paper particles from the activated carbon particles, which is subsequently put into water for a wet shredding into fine particles that can be re-used. The recycled activated carbon has a BET surface area of up to 1200m(2)/g and the recycled acetonitrile has a high purity.
authors.affiliation: Division of Materials, Mechanics and Structures, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. Electronic address: Guozhan.jiang@wlv.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Guozhan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Division of Materials, Mechanics and Structures, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. Electronic address: stephen.pickering@nottingham.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Pickering
mesh_terms: D000097:Acetonitriles / Q000737:chemistry; D000327:Adsorption; D000535:Aluminum / Q000737:chemistry; D001881:Borates / Q000737:chemistry; D002244:Carbon / Q000737:chemistry*; D011211:Electric Power Supplies; D004566:Electrodes; D004573:Electrolytes; D004581:Electronics; D006358:Hot Temperature; D007700:Kinetics; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000737:chemistry; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry; D059027:Recycling; D012997:Solvents / Q000737:chemistry; D019789:Tetraethylammonium / Q000737:chemistry; D013818:Thermogravimetry; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D000097:Acetonitriles; D001881:Borates; D004573:Electrolytes; D011108:Polymers; D012997:Solvents; D014867:Water; D019789:Tetraethylammonium; D002244:Carbon; D000535:Aluminum; D009584:Nitrogen; C032159:acetonitrile
keywords: Activated carbon; Recycling; Supercapacitors