Recovery and reuse of floc sludge for high-performance capacitors

Highlights

• The feasibility of facile fabrication of capacitor from floc sludge is discussed.

• The porous carbon composites are obtained by acidification and KOH activation.

• The as-prepared 3D structure has large surface area and optimal pore size.

• Admirable specific capacitance and outstanding cycling stability are obtained.

Abstract

In this paper, floc sludge was transformed into porous carbon matrix composites by acidification and KOH activation at high temperature and used as an electrode material for application in capacitors. The effects of different treatment processes on the electrochemical properties of sludge materials were compared. The results of electrochemical tests showed that the sludge electrode exhibited excellent energy storage performance after HNO₃ acidification and KOH activation with a mass ratio of 3:1 (KOH/C). The specific capacitance of the sludge electrode reached 287 F/g at a current density of 1 A/g. In addition, the sludge electrode material showed excellent cycle stability (specific capacity retained at 93.4% after 5000 cycles at 5 A/g). Based on XRD, FTIR, SEM, TEM, and BET surface analysis, the morphology of sludge electrode materials can be effectively regulated by chemical pretreatment. The best-performing material showed a 3D porous morphology with a large specific surface area (2588 m²/g) and optimal pore size distribution, improving ion channels and charge conductivity. According to the life cycle assessment of floc sludge utilization, it reduced the resource consumption and toxicity risk by more than 90% compared with ordinary sludge disposal processes. This work provided a cost-effective and eco-friendly sludge reuse method and demonstrated the application potential of sludge-based materials in high-performance supercapacitors.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Floc sludge / Porous carbon electrode / Energy storage performance / Supercapacitors

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the funding by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51978643) and Youth Innovation Promotion Association, CAS (2014037).

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-021-1512-5 and is accessible for authorized users.

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