Green preparation of high-quality and low-cost graphene from discarded polyethylene plastic bags

Abstract

A facile method was used to prepare graphene from discarded polyethylene plastic bags in our work. In order to make high-quality graphene, PE plastic bags were ultrasonically cleaned, ball milled and microwave sintered successively. The height of the 2D band was 1.3 times that of the G band, which reveals that the layer number of as-prepared graphene was 1–2. The atomic ratio of C and O for graphene was more than 54, which indicates that it mainly consists of carbon. The size of graphene was within 4–10 μm. Bi-layer sheets were inevitably observed through high resolution imaging of graphene edges. The BET SSA and the electrical conductivity of graphene were 1521.3 m² g⁻¹ and 4618 S m⁻¹, respectively. This work provides a new approach to large-scale and high-quality synthesis of graphene from waste polluting materials.