Researchers tout technology to make electronics out of old tires
Researchers are working with a process that turns old tires – and there are some 300,000 tossed yearly – into electrodes for supercapacitors that would be used on the grid or in cars and other electronics applications.+More on Network World: Real Jobs for Real Robots+ The technology developed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Drexel University produces carbon composite papers through a process described like this: “the researchers soaked crumbs of irregularly shaped tire rubber in concentrated sulfuric acid. They then washed the rubber and put it into a tubular furnace under a flowing nitrogen gas atmosphere. They gradually increased the temperature from 400 degrees Celsius to 1,100 degrees. After several additional steps, including mixing the material with potassium hydroxide and additional baking and washing with deionized water and oven drying, researchers have a material they could mix with polyaniline, an electrically conductive polymer, until they have a finished product.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here