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Capacitive deionization (CDI) is a promising technology for water desalination that has seen tremendous advances over the past five years.

Desalination by capacitive deionization (CDI) is an emerging technology for the energy- and cost-efficient removal of ions from water by electrosorption in charged porous carbon electrodes. A variety of carbon materials, including activated carbons, templated carbons, carbon aerogels, and carbon nanotubes, have been studied as electrode materials for CDI. Using carbide-derived carbons (CDCs) with precisely tailored pore size distributions (PSD) of micro- and mesopores, we studied experimentally and theoretically the effect of pore architecture on salt electrosorption capacity and salt removal rate. Of the reported CDC-materials, ordered mesoporous silicon carbide-derived carbon (OM SiC-CDC), with a bimodal distribution of pore sizes at 1 and 4 nm, shows the highest salt electrosorption capacity per unit mass, namely 15.0 mg of NaCl per 1 g of porous carbon in both electrodes at a cell voltage of 1.2 V (12.8 mg per 1 g of total electrode mass). We present a method to quantify the influence of each pore size increment on desalination performance in CDI by correlating the PSD with desalination performance. We obtain a high correlation when assuming the ion adsorption capacity to increase sharply for pore sizes below one nanometer, in line with previous observations for CDI and for electrical double layer capacitors, but in contrast to the commonly held view about CDI that mesopores are required to avoid electrical double layer overlap. To quantify the dynamics of CDI, we develop a two-dimensional porous electrode modified Donnan model. For two of the tested materials, both containing a fair degree of mesopores (while the total electrode porosity is [similar]95 vol%), the model describes data for the accumulation rate of charge (current) and salt accumulation very well, and also accurately reproduces the effect of an increase in electrode thickness. However, for TiC-CDC with hardly any mesopores, and with a lower total porosity, the current is underestimated. Calculation results show that a material with higher electrode porosity is not necessarily responding faster, as more porosity also implies longer transport pathways across the electrode. Our work highlights that a direct prediction of CDI performance both for equilibrium and dynamics can be achieved based on the PSD and knowledge of the geometrical structure of the electrodes

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Capacitive deionization (CDI) is a water desalination technology in which salt ions are removed from brackish water by flowing through a spacer channel with porous electrodes on each side. Upon applying a voltage difference between the two electrodes, cations move to and are accumulated in electrostatic double layers inside the negatively charged cathode and the anions are removed by the positively charged anode. One of the key parameters for commercial realization of CDI is the salt adsorption capacity of the electrodes. State-of-the-art electrode materials are based on porous activated carbon particles or carbon aerogels. Here we report the use for CDI of carbide-derived carbon (CDC), a porous material with well-defined and tunable pore sizes in the sub-nanometer range. When comparing electrodes made with CDC with electrodes based on activated carbon, we find a significantly higher salt adsorption capacity in the relevant cell voltage window of 1.2-1.4 V. The measured adsorption capacity for four materials tested negatively correlates with known metrics for pore structure of the carbon powders such as total pore volume and BET-area, but is positively correlated with the volume of pores of sizes <1 nm, suggesting the relevance of these sub-nanometer pores for ion adsorption. The charge efficiency, being the ratio of equilibrium salt adsorption over charge, does not depend much on the type of material, indicating that materials that have been identified for high charge storage capacity can also be highly suitable for CDI. This work shows the potential of materials with well-defined sub-nanometer pore sizes for energy-efficient water desalination.

The recently developed modified Donnan (mD) model provides a simple and useful description of the electrical double layer in microporous carbon electrodes, suitable for incorporation in porous electrode theory. By postulating an attractive excess chemical potential for each ion in the micropores that is inversely proportional to the total ion concentration, we show that experimental data for capacitive deionization (CDI) can be accurately predicted over a wide range of applied voltages and salt concentrations. Since the ion spacing and Bjerrum length are each comparable to the micropore size (few nm), we postulate that the attraction results from fluctuating bare Coulomb interactions between individual ions and the metallic pore surfaces (image forces) that are not captured by meanfield theories, such as the Poisson-Boltzmann-Stern model or its mathematical limit for overlapping double layers, the Donnan model. Using reasonable estimates of the micropore permittivity and mean size (and no other fitting parameters), we propose a simple theory that predicts the attractive chemical potential inferred from experiments. As additional evidence for attractive forces, we present data for salt adsorption in uncharged microporous carbons, also predicted by the theory.

Using porous electrodes containing redox-active nickel hexacyanoferrate (NiHCF) nanoparticles, we construct and test a device for capacitive deionization in a two flow-channel device where the intercalation electrodes are in direct contact with an anion-exchange membrane. Upon reduction of NiHCF, cations intercalate into it and the water in its vicinity is desalinated; at the same time water in the opposing electrode becomes more saline upon oxidation of NiHCF in that electrode. In a cyclic process of charge and discharge, fresh water is continuously produced, alternating between the two channels in sync with the direction of applied current. We present proof-of-principle experiments of this technology for single salt solutions, where we analyze various levels of current and cycle durations. We analyze salt removal rate and energy consumption. In desalination experiments with salt mixtures we find a threefold enhancement for K + over Na + -adsorption, which shows the potential of NiHCF intercalation electrodes for selective ion separation from mixed ionic solutions.

Capacitive technologies, such as capacitive deionization and energy harvesting based on mixing energy ("capmix" and "CO 2 energy"), are characterized by intermittent operation: phases of ion electrosorption from the water are followed by system regeneration. From a system application point of view, continuous operation has many advantages, to optimize performance, to simplify system operation, and ultimately to lower costs. In our study, we investigate as a step towards second generation capacitive technologies the potential of continuous operation of capacitive deionization and energy harvesting devices, enabled by carbon flow electrodes using a suspension based on conventional activated carbon powders. We show how the water residence time and mass loading of carbon in the suspension influence system performance. The efficiency and kinetics of the continuous salt removal process can be improved by optimizing device operation, without using less common or highly elaborate novel materials. We demonstrate, for the first time, continuous energy generation via capacitive mixing technology using differences in water salinity, and differences in gas phase CO 2 concentration. Using a novel design of cylindrical ion exchange membranes serving as flow channels, we continuously extract energy from available concentration differences that otherwise would remain unused. These results may contribute to establishing a sustainable energy strategy when implementing energy extraction for sources such as CO 2-emissions from power plants based on fossil fuels.