Plastic power: recycled polymers as precursors for electrodes in energy storage devices

Abstract

Escalating plastic pollution and the growing demand for sustainable energy storage call for innovative, integrated solutions. This review highlights an emerging strategy for upcycling recycled polymers into high-value carbon-based electrode materials for energy storage. Grounded in circular economy principles, this approach simultaneously mitigates plastic waste and provides cost-effective, high-performance materials for next-generation energy technologies. Common plastic feedstocks, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), waste personal protective equipment (PPE), and mixed plastic streams, serve as precursors. Conversion methods, such as pyrolysis and carbonization, often combined with physical or chemical activation, generate porous carbons with high surface areas. Advanced strategies, including catalytic carbonization, templating, and heteroatom doping, further tailor structures, including activated carbons, carbon nanofibers/nanotubes, hard carbons, and porous nanosheets, for specific applications. These materials exhibit promising performance as supercapacitor electrodes, delivering high capacitance and energy density, and are increasingly investigated for battery systems such as sodium-ion and lithium-sulfur batteries. Key challenges remain, particularly feedstock heterogeneity, process scalability, cost, and reproducibility of material properties. Addressing these issues is essential to fully realize the potential of recycled polymers as sustainable precursors for advanced energy materials. By framing plastic-derived carbons in terms of structure–property–performance relationships, sustainability, and technological readiness, this review positions ‘Plastic Power’ as a platform for innovation-driven circular economy strategies in functional energy materials.