Repurposing Mining and Metallurgical Waste as Electroactive Materials for Advanced Energy Applications: Advances and Perspectives

Abstract

Developing cost-effective electroactive materials for advanced energy devices is vital for the sustainable development of electrochemical energy conversion/storage systems. To reduce the fabrication cost of electroactive materials (electrocatalysts and electrodes), growing attention has been paid to low-cost precursors. Recently, mining and metallurgical waste has been used to design electroactive materials, which shows great economic and environmental benefits. Herein, current achievements in the applications of mining and metallurgical waste-derived electroactive materials in sustainable energy conversion/storage fields (batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells, and small-molecule electro-conversion) are comprehensively analyzed. The waste-to-materials conversion methods and materials’ structure–performance relationships are emphasized. In addition, perspectives related to the further development and applications of waste-derived high-performance electroactive materials are pointed out.