Co-pyrolysis of chicken feathers and macadamia nut shells, a promising strategy to create nitrogen-enriched electrode materials for supercapacitor applications

Bioresour Technol. 2024 Feb 3;396:130417. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2024.130417. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTGlobal food waste emits substantial quantities of nitrogen to the environment (6.3 Mtons annually), chicken feather (CF) waste is a major contributor to this. Pyrolysis, in particular co-pyrolysis of nitrogen-rich and lignocellulosic waste streams is a promising strategy to improve the extent of pyrolytic nitrogen retention by incorporating nitrogen in its solid biochar structure. As such, this biochar can serve as a precursor for nitrogen-enriched activated carbons for application in supercapacitors. Therefore, this study investigates the co-pyrolysis of CF with macadamia nut shells (MNS) to create nitrogen-rich activated carbons. Co-pyrolysis increased nitrogen retention during pyrolysis from 9 % to 18 % compared to CF mono-pyrolysis, while the porosity was maintained. After removing undesirable inorganic impurities by dilute acid washing, this led to a specific capacitance of 21F/g using a scan rate of 20 mV/s. Finally, cycling stability tests demonstrated good stability with 73 % capacitance retention after 10 000 cycles.PMID:38316229 | DOI:10.1016/j.biortech.2024.130417

Source: Bioresource Technology - February 5, 2024 Category: Biotechnology Authors: W Vercruysse R R Muniz B Joos A Hardy H Hamed D Desta H-G Boyen S Schreurs M Safari W Marchal D Vandamme Source Type: research