Anybody who has ever enjoyed fresh crab legs or lobster tails can attest to how difficult it is to get through their tough shells. But instead of just throwing them away, researchers are “upcycling” these shells into porous, carbon-filled materials with a wide variety of uses. Now, a team reporting in ACS Omega has used this “crab carbon” to create anode materials for sodium-ion batteries—an up-and-coming competitor to lithium-ion chemistries.
Crab shells could help power the next generation of rechargeable batteries
