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The global accumulation of plastic waste poses a critical environmental challenge. Upcycling plastic wastes into functional carbon materials for electrochemical energy storage presents a compelling solution. Herein, we report an integrated pyrolysis-chemical vapor deposition (CVD) strategy to upcycle polyethylene into high-value carbon nanotubes (CNTs). These CNTs are integrated onto carbon felt (CCF) to construct a high-performance cathode for a flowless zinc–bromine battery. The resulting device exhibits outstanding stability, maintaining 1200 cycles at 10 mA·cm–2 and 2 mAh·cm–2 with negligible degradation, while delivering average Coulombic and energy efficiencies of 98.12% and 84.82%, respectively, rivaling state-of-art devices. This superior performance originates from two key features: (i) a mesoporous CNT architecture that increases active site density and accelerates Br–/Br2 redox kinetics and (ii) abundant carbon defects that strongly adsorb and anchor polybromide species, effectively suppressing the shuttle effect. This work provides an innovative route for high-value recycling of plastic waste and offers valuable insights for the rational design of carbon-based energy materials.
Yuan et al. (Thu,) studied this question.