Plastic bag pollution has become a major environmental challenge, pushing cities and countries around the world to heavily tax or ban the sacks. But what if discarded plastic bags could be made into higher-value products? Recently, researchers have come up with a new method of converting plastic bags into carbon chips that serve as anodes in lithium-ion batteries. During the process, polyethylene bags are immersed in sulfuric acid and sealed inside a reactor where they are heated at a certain temperature to produce pure carbon, which is later grounded into a material that can be used for energy-storage. The end product proved to work as well as conventional batteries, meaning that the process could potentially be applied commercially, and thus incentivize the collection and recycling of plastic bags on a large scale.
Scientists unveil new method that turns used plastic bags into batteries
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