Lorero Isaac, Campo Mónica, Arribas Carmen, Prolongo Margarita Gonzalez, López Felix Antonio, Prolongo Silvia G
Materials Science and Engineering Area, ESCET, Rey Juan Carlos University, C/Tulipán s/n, 28933 Madrid, Spain.
Materials and Aerospacial Production, Politechnic University, Plaza del Cardenal Cisneros, 3, 28040 Madrid, Spain.
Materials (Basel). 2022 Apr 13;15(8):2842. doi: 10.3390/ma15082842.
The zinc alkaline battery is one of the most popular sources of portable electrical energy, with more than 300,000 tons being consumed per year. Accordingly, it is critical to recycle its components. In this work, we propose the use of zinc oxide (ZnO) microparticles recovered from worn-out batteries as fillers of epoxy resins. These nanocomposites can be used as protective coatings or pigments and as structural composites with high thermal stability. The addition of ceramic nanofillers, such as ZnO or/and TiO2, could enhance the thermal and mechanical properties, and the hardness and hydrophobicity, of the epoxy resins, depending on several factors. Accordingly, different nanocomposites reinforced with recycled ZnO and commercial ZnO and TiO2 nanoparticles have been manufactured with different nanofiller contents. In addition to the different ceramic oxides, the morphology and size of fillers are different. Recycled ZnO are“desert roses” such as microparticles, commercial ZnO are rectangular parallelepipeds nanoparticles, and commercial TiO2 are smaller spherical nanoparticles. The addition of ceramic fillers produces a small increase of the glass transition temperature (<2%), together with an enhancement of the barrier effect of the epoxy resin, reducing the water diffusion coefficient (<21%), although the maximum water uptake remains constant. The nanocomposite water absorption is fully reversible by subsequent thermal treatment, recovering its initial thermomechanical behavior. The water angle contact (WCA) also increases (~12%) with the presence of ceramic particles, although the highest hydrophobicity (35%) is obtained when the epoxy resin reinforced with recycled flowerlike ZnO microparticles is etched with acid stearic and acetic acid, inducing the corrosion of the ZnO on the surface and therefore the increment of the surface roughness. The presence of desert rose ZnO particles enhances the de lotus effect.
锌碱性电池是最受欢迎的便携式电能来源之一，每年的消耗量超过30万吨。因此，回收其组件至关重要。在这项工作中，我们提议将从废旧电池中回收的氧化锌（ZnO）微粒用作环氧树脂的填料。这些纳米复合材料可用作保护涂层或颜料，以及具有高热稳定性的结构复合材料。添加陶瓷纳米填料，如ZnO或/和TiO2，可根据几个因素提高环氧树脂的热性能和机械性能、硬度和疏水性。因此，已经制备了不同纳米填料含量的、用回收的ZnO以及商业ZnO和TiO2纳米颗粒增强的不同纳米复合材料。除了不同的陶瓷氧化物外，填料的形态和尺寸也不同。回收的ZnO是“沙漠玫瑰”状微粒，商业ZnO是长方体纳米颗粒，商业TiO2是较小的球形纳米颗粒。添加陶瓷填料会使玻璃化转变温度略有升高（<2%），同时增强环氧树脂的阻隔效果，降低水扩散系数（<21%），尽管最大吸水量保持不变。通过后续热处理，纳米复合材料的吸水率完全可逆，恢复其初始热机械性能。陶瓷颗粒的存在也会使水接触角（WCA）增加（~12%），尽管在用硬脂酸和醋酸蚀刻用回收的花状ZnO微粒增强的环氧树脂时，可获得最高疏水性（35%），这会导致表面ZnO的腐蚀，从而增加表面粗糙度。沙漠玫瑰状ZnO颗粒的存在增强了去莲花效应。
