Surface-treated carbon electrodes with modified potential of zero charge for capacitive deionization

The potential of zero charge (Epzc) of electrodes can greatly influence the salt removal capacity, charge efficiency and cyclic stability of capacitive deionization (CDI). Thus optimizing the Epzc of CDI electrodes is of great importance. A simple strategy to negatively shift the Epzc of CDI electrodes by modifying commercial activated carbon with quaternized poly (4-vinylpyridine) (AC-QPVP) is reported in this work. The Epzc of the prepared AC-QPVP composite electrode is as negative as −0.745 V vs. Ag/AgCl. Benefiting from the optimized Epzc of electrodes, the asymmetric CDI cell which consists of the AC-QPVP electrode and a nitric acid treated activated carbon (AC-HNO3) electrode exhibits excellent CDI performance. For inverted CDI, the working potential window of the asymmetric CDI cell can reach 1.4 V, and its salt removal capacity can be as high as 9.6 mg/g. For extended voltage CDI, the salt removal capacity of the asymmetric CDI cell at 1.2/−1.2 V is 20.6 mg/g, which is comparable to that of membrane CDI using pristine activated carbon as the electrodes (19.5 mg/g). The present work provides a simple method to prepare highly positively charged CDI electrodes and may pave the way for the development of high-performance CDI cells.