Polymer-coated composite anodes for efficient and stable capacitive deionization
By X. Gao and A. Omosebi and N. Holubowitch and A. Liu and K. Ruh and J. Landon and K. Liu
Published in Desalination
2016
Abstract
In the contemporary literature, diminished salt removal in a \CDI\ device is primarily due to carbon oxidation at the anode in aqueous solutions. Therefore, an anion exchange polymer is used to prepare a composite carbon as a \CDI\ anode. Results from repetitive \CDI\ testing shows that more efficient and consistent long-term salt removal is achieved when a flow-through \CDI\ stack is configured with composite anodes compared to polymer-free anodes. Analysis of the effluent pH and steady-state current indicates that this performance improvement may be due to the minimization of parasitic reactions by shielding of the carbon electrodes with the selective polymer layer coated at the anode.