Plastic bottles can be recycled into energy

Supercapacitors are charged like a battery but release their energy more rapidly – and some of their components can now be built from old plastic bottles

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

23 August 2023

We throw away billions of plastic bottles each year, but they could be turned into useful electronics components instead

Shutterstock/photka

Plastic bottles can be upcycled into parts for supercapacitors, which store energy like batteries but release it much faster.

Plastic pollution is prevalent in our environment, from litter in parks to garbage patches in the oceans. Disposable drink bottles are a significant part of the problem. According to some sources, 38 billion of the bottles are sent to landfill each year in the US alone. Shengnian Wang at Louisiana Tech …

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