Recycled Tires Could Power New Lithium-Ion Batteries

Recycled tires may be the key to giving new life to lithium-ion batteries. Scientists have found that by modifying materials from discarded tires, they can develop a better anode for lithium-ion batteries.

Lithium-ion batteries have the potential to provide power to plug-in electric vehicles and store energy produced by wind and solar power. In this case, the scientists modified the microstructural characteristics of carbon black, a substance recovered from discarded tires, in order to develop a better anode, which is a negatively charged electrode used as a host for storing lithium during charging.

"Using waste tires for products such as energy storage is very attractive note only from the carbon materials recovery perspective but also for controlling environmental hazards caused by waste tire stock piles," said Parans Paranthaman, one of the researchers, in a news release.

The researchers used the carbon black to create a small, laboratory-scale battery with a reversible capacity. They found that this battery actually has a capacity that is higher than what is possible with commercial graphite materials. In fact, after 100 cycles the capacity measured nearly 390 milliamp hours per gram of carbon anode, which exceeds the best properties of commercial graphite. The scientists attributed this to the unique microstructure of the tire-derived carbon.

"This kind of performance is highly encouraging, especially in light of the fact that the global battery market for vehicles and military applications is approaching $78 billion and the materials market is expected to hit $11 billion in 2018," said Paranthaman.

The findings could pave the way for the creation of batteries that could help power devices in the future. The fact that old tires are used also means that there could be a way to utilize something that is normally considered to be "trash" for future benefit.

The findings are published in the journal RSC Advances.