TY - JOUR
T1 - Efficient waste polyvinyl(butyral) and cellulose composite enabled carbon nanofibers for oxygen reduction reaction and water remediation
AU - Park, Jong Chel
AU - Kim, Jae Chan
AU - Park, Sangbaek
AU - Kim, Dong Wan
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) Grant funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT, South Korea (2016M3A7B4909318) and by a Korea University Grant. We thank the Korea Basic Science Institute for the technical support.
Funding Information:
This work is supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) Grant funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT, South Korea (2016M3A7B4909318) and by a Korea University Grant. We thank the Korea Basic Science Institute for the technical support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2020/4/30
Y1 - 2020/4/30
N2 - Waste polyvinyl(butyral) (W-PVB) collected from the windshields of end-of-life vehicles has drawn considerable interest as a complementary and abundant resource. However, large amounts of W-PVB are still being buried in landfills every year owing to a lack of recycling techniques. As an alternative, we report the fabrication of carbon nanofibers from natural cellulose and W-PVB composites using a facile electrospinning, carbonization, and KOH activation approach. Interestingly, volatiles and residual carbon from a W-PVB matrix through carbonization produce highly porous carbon nanofibers and a defective graphitic surface layer, respectively. As a result of the large surface area (698.1 m2 g−1) and pore volume (0.2919 cm3 g−1) from abundant micropores, as well as the high density of active sites from defects, resulting carbon nanofiber shows a superior performance in environmental applications. It serves as a metal-free and un-doped carbon catalyst with a half-wave potential of 0.76 V vs RHE for the oxygen reduction reaction and a 99.6% removal of rhodamine B from water as an adsorbent for water remediation. This simple strategy can open a new approach to the design and synthesis of various classes of W-PVB-based composites, which will broaden the reuse of W-PVB in renewable and sustainable applications.
AB - Waste polyvinyl(butyral) (W-PVB) collected from the windshields of end-of-life vehicles has drawn considerable interest as a complementary and abundant resource. However, large amounts of W-PVB are still being buried in landfills every year owing to a lack of recycling techniques. As an alternative, we report the fabrication of carbon nanofibers from natural cellulose and W-PVB composites using a facile electrospinning, carbonization, and KOH activation approach. Interestingly, volatiles and residual carbon from a W-PVB matrix through carbonization produce highly porous carbon nanofibers and a defective graphitic surface layer, respectively. As a result of the large surface area (698.1 m2 g−1) and pore volume (0.2919 cm3 g−1) from abundant micropores, as well as the high density of active sites from defects, resulting carbon nanofiber shows a superior performance in environmental applications. It serves as a metal-free and un-doped carbon catalyst with a half-wave potential of 0.76 V vs RHE for the oxygen reduction reaction and a 99.6% removal of rhodamine B from water as an adsorbent for water remediation. This simple strategy can open a new approach to the design and synthesis of various classes of W-PVB-based composites, which will broaden the reuse of W-PVB in renewable and sustainable applications.
KW - Adsorbent
KW - Cellulose
KW - Electrospinning
KW - Oxygen reduction reaction
KW - Porous carbon nanofibers
KW - Waste polyvinyl(butyral)
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85078096579&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.apsusc.2020.145505
DO - 10.1016/j.apsusc.2020.145505
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85078096579
SN - 0169-4332
VL - 510
JO - Applied Surface Science
JF - Applied Surface Science
M1 - 145505
ER -