Capacitive Deionization Performance of Activated Carbon Electrodes Prepared by a Novel Liquid Binder

A novel liquid binder, which is called AA in this paper, was synthesized with acrylic acid and azodiisobutyronitrile to prepare electrodes from activated carbon (AC, ACE) for capacitive deionization (CDI). The ACE prepared with AA (ACE-AA) was carbonized to improve its CDI performance. As a result, its wettability was significantly improved, and the specific capacitance was increased by a factor of 8. The optimization showed that electrodes with a mass fraction of AC of 35 wt% had the best CDI performance. Compared with ACEs prepared with phenolic resin (PR), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and epoxy resin (ER), electrodes prepared using AA binder showed improved flexibility, durability, wettability, and desalination ratio. Therefore, the ACE-AA seems to be a very promising carbon electrode for CDI.