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Cigarette butts will be converted into energy storage material
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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It is known that smoking is dangerous to health, and both passive and active smoking are equally harmful. In addition, cigarettes are dangerous to the environment.
The garbage that surrounds us contains a large number of cigarette butts. Smokers throw them on sidewalks, out of car windows, from balconies, and a significant portion of the butts ends up in water bodies.
Experts have calculated that more than five million cigarette butts end up in the environment every year.
Scientists from South Korea have developed a method that will not only clean the environment from tons of cigarette butts, but also transform them into a rather useful material.
Experts have proposed a method that will make it possible to make a special material from cigarette butts for storing energy used in computers, portable devices, electric vehicles, and wind turbines.
Recently, specialists presented their technology and demonstrated high performance in comparison with existing analogues (graphene, carbon, etc.).
Experts suggest that the material obtained from the conversion of cigarette butts can be used to coat the electrodes of supercapacitors, which can store a fairly large amount of energy, while at the same time solving the environmental problem that arises from the increase in the number of cigarette butts.
Co-author of the research project, Yongheop Yi, noted that the technology they developed showed good results and cigarette filters can be converted into a carbon-based high-tech material.
A number of countries have introduced strict measures to prevent tons of toxic and non-degradable cigarette butts from getting into the environment. But a new technology from South Korean specialists is currently one of the best options for improving the environmental situation.
Today, one of the most widely used materials for producing supercapacitor components is carbon, due to its low cost, large surface area, high electrical conductivity and durability.
Experts from all over the world are developing various improvements for supercapacitors, in particular, energy density, power, cycle stability, while also addressing the issue of reducing production costs.
The research project showed that the main component of cigarette filters, cellulose acetate, can be converted through thermal decomposition into a carbon-based material. The resulting material has many small pores and high capacitance properties.
As the authors of the project note, high-performance supercapacitors require a material with a large surface area. As a result of thermal decomposition, many pores of different sizes are formed on the surface, which ensures high power density.
The scientists applied the resulting material to electrodes and tested its ability to absorb electrolyte ions and release them, in other words, to charge and discharge, in a three-electrode system.
The study showed the material's good ability to retain large amounts of energy, unlike the carbon, graphene, and carbon nanotubes used today.
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