Microplastics can be recycled to make electrodes for lithium batteries

The polyethylene microplastic air pollution generally present in wastewater could be extracted to create electrodes for lithium-ion batteries

By Carissa Wong

Fragments of plastic that pollute water sources the world over and are regarded as dangerous to our well being might be recycled to make electrodes for lithium-ion batteries.

Jinsub Choi at Inha University in South Korea and his colleagues have discovered a option to extract microplastics made from polyethylene – the commonest sort of plastic – from contaminated water and switch them into electrodes for lithium-ion batteries. This is the kind of battery …