Recovery of Multi-Functional Carbon Fiber from COVID-19 Generated Waste for an Effective Management Through Circular Economy

The sudden outbreak of pandemic leads to the exponential rise in the biomedical waste like personal protective equipment, testing kit, and surgical face mask and nitrile gloves. The Face mask which is mostly derived from the petrochemical based non-renewable polymeric material which is non-degradable and hazardous. The extensive use and reckless disposal can not only adversely affect human health but also leading to release of tones of microplastics to landfill as well as to the marine biome. The strategies for waste management and control must include a primary level treatment, starting from the limiting the production and use as per the requirement. The waste treatment methods such as segregation and decomposition, irradiation, detoxification using chemicals, and thermal induced treatments (incineration) must be implemented for convenient waste management promoting the ecological safety. Besides, implementation of reusable gowns and PPE, the subsequent sterilization and reuse of PPE for multiple patients may be prioritize to lessen the environmental threat. This chapter aims to discuss the advance recycling technique to recover multifaceted utilizable carbon fibers from face mask waste through thermal stabilization and pyrolysis. The carbon yielding pre-existeing fiber structure of polypropylene mask can be directly converted into various carbonaceous product having high and having potential application in oil adsorption and removing organic pollutants from aqueous environment. This chapter provides efficient alternative to contemporary waste recycling strategies to combat environmental contamination generated from COVID -19 pandemic through circular economy.