Dendritic Nanostructured Waste Copper Wires for High-Energy Alkaline Battery

作者：Nilesh R. Chodankar, Su‐Hyeon Ji, Young‐Kyu Han, Do‐Heyoung Kim · 发表于：Nano-Micro Letters · 年份：2019 · DOI：10.1007/s40820-019-0337-2 · 被引用次数：771 · 研究领域：Advanced battery technologies research、Advancements in Battery Materials、Advanced Battery Materials and Technologies

Abstract Rechargeable alkaline batteries (RABs) have received remarkable attention in the past decade for their high energy, low cost, safe operation, facile manufacture, and eco-friendly nature. To date, expensive electrode materials and current collectors were predominantly applied for RABs, which have limited their real-world efficacy. In the present work, we propose a scalable process to utilize electronic waste (e-waste) Cu wires as a cost-effective current collector for high-energy wire-type RABs. Initially, the vertically aligned CuO nanowires were prepared over the waste Cu wires via in situ alkaline corrosion. Then, both atomic-layer-deposited NiO and NiCo-hydroxide were applied to the CuO nanowires to form a uniform dendritic-structured NiCo-hydroxide/NiO/CuO/Cu electrode. When the prepared dendritic-structured electrode was applied to the RAB, it showed excellent electrochemical features, namely high-energy-density (82.42 Wh kg−1), excellent specific capacity (219 mAh g−1), and long-term cycling stability (94% capacity retention over 5000 cycles). The presented approach and material meet the requirements of a cost-effective, abundant, and highly efficient electrode for advanced eco-friendly RABs. More importantly, the present method provides an efficient path to recycle e-waste for value-added energy storage applications.