High-Performance Carbon from Recycled Mattress for Supercapacitor Devices

This chapter is focused on the use of wastes such as mattresses for energy storage devices. A process for the fabrication of carbon-based electrodes using recycled mattresses for supercapacitors is presented. The first section emphasizes the importance of recycling materials both from industrial and domestic waste. The second section describes some of the most utilized processes for the development of activated carbon from various sources including a detailed characterization study. The third section covers energy storage mechanisms such as EDLC, pseudocapacitor, and hybrid energy devices. Also, different types of energy devices and their configurations that are currently being researched are discussed. The fourth section depicts some of the results obtained for supercapacitors fabricated using carbons derived from various components of mattresses such as shoddy, coconut fiber, cotton, and foam. These carbon-based materials were then used for the fabrication of electrodes for supercapacitors and their electrochemical properties were studied through several characterizations. The effect of activating agent ratio and pyrolysis temperature on the properties of supercapacitors is provided. Finally, a conclusion section illustrates the main hurdles and some of the approaches that can be used to further optimize the electrochemical properties of such carbon-based materials.