Synthesis of silicon carbide nanoparticles by using electronic waste as a carbon source

Around the world the amount of electronic waste is growing exponentially and considered to be an important environmental and health issue. The environmental friendly and resource recovery methodology is critically required for existing scenario to recycle electronic waste. In this paper, a novel approach to synthesise silicon carbide (SiC) nanoparticles by using electronic waste compact discs (CDs) char as a carbon source is reported. The synthesis is based on carbothermal reduction at 1550 °C using waste CD char as the carbon source and silicon dioxide as the silicon source. FTIR, Raman and XPS results confirm the formation of SiC particles and XRD signifies the major phases of 3C-SiC. The size of synthesised SiC particles was in the range of 40-90 nm and was mainly composed of sphere shaped nanoparticles. This innovative approach of using electronic waste CDs as the carbon source for synthesising SiC nanoparticles will reduce the volume of waste in landfills and also the dependency of industries on traditional raw materials.