Capacitive deionization (CDI) for desalisation using carbon aerogel electrodes

Abstract

Capacitive deionization (CDI) is an electrochemical water treatment process that holds the promise of not only being a commercially viable alternative for treating water but for saving energy as well. Carbon aerogel electrodes for CDI process with high specific surface area (779.04 m2/g) and nano-pore (2-90 nm) have been prepared via pyrolyzing RF organic aerogel at 800oC in nitrogen atmosphere. The CDI characteristics of carbon aerogel electrodes were investigated for the NaCl absorption into a CDI cell at variation conditions. Experiments data showed that the maximum NaCl removal capacity was 21.41 mg/g in 500 mg/L NaCl solution, higher than for other carbon-based materials in the literature. It was evaluated that the CDI process using carbon aerogel electrodes promising to be an effective technology for desalination.

Water hyacinth as a green and sustainable material for carbon aerogel electrodes utilized in membrane capacitive deionization

“…[ 5–7 ] Carbon aerogel (CA) is becoming one of the most promising carbonaceous materials in CDI process owing to their tunable pore structure, large surface area, great mesopore volume, wide density range, good electrical conductivity and low price. [ 4,8,9 ] However, high‐cost and complicated synthetic routes of carbon aerogel (normally fabricated from the polymerization of resorcinol with formaldehyde) [ 4,10–15 ] inevitably limit their large‐scale production for CDI application. Therefore, biomass‐ and waste‐derived carbon aerogels have recently been exploited not only to reduce the expense of electrode preparation but also to improve their electrosorption capacity.…”

“…[5][6][7] Carbon aerogel (CA) is becoming one of the most promising carbonaceous materials in CDI process owing to their tunable pore structure, large surface area, great mesopore volume, wide density range, good electrical conductivity and low price. [4,8,9] However, high-cost and complicated synthetic routes of carbon aerogel (normally fabricated from the polymerization of resorcinol with formaldehyde) [4,[10][11][12][13][14][15] inevitably limit their F I G U R E 1 Images of (a) WH/LC, (b) WH/LCA-0.5, (c) WH/LCA-1.0, (d) WH/LCA-1.5, (e) WH/LCA-2.0, (f) WH/LCCA-0.5, (g) WH/LCCA-1.0, (h) WH/LCCA-1.5, and (i) WH/LCCA-2.0. large-scale production for CDI application.…”