Used Cigarette Butts Offer Energy Storage Solution/Dengue Fever Control

From Science Daily:

Date:

May 15, 2015

Source:

ResearchSEA

Summary:

Scientists have developed a new way to store energy that also offers a solution to a growing environmental problem. 

 

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In addition to their energy storing potential, cigarette butts may one day be used to control dengue fever. Researchers found that female mosquitoes actually prefer laying eggs in an environment that contains cigarette butts over a butt-free environment. What's more, the researchers observed that exposure to cigarette-butt waste has "detrimental effects on the [fertility] and longevity of [mosquito] offspring." Credit: © vvoe / Fotolia

 

Scientists in South Korea have developed a new way to store energy that also offers a solution to a growing environmental problem.

Reporting their findings in the IOP Publishing journal Nanotechnology, the research team successfully converted used cigarette butts into a high performing material that could be integrated into computers, handheld devices, electric vehicles and wind turbines to store energy.

According to the study, this material outperforms commercially available carbon, graphene and carbon nanotubes. It may someday be used to coat the electrodes of supercapacitors: electrochemical components that can store extremely large amounts of electrical energy.

"Our study has shown that used cigarette filters can be transformed into a high performing carbon-based material using a simple one step process, which simultaneously offers a green solution for meeting the energy demands of society," says co-author Professor Jongheop Yi of Seoul National University....MORE