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Combining Battery‐Type and Pseudocapacitive Charge Storage in Ag/Ti3C2Tx MXene Electrode for Capturing Chloride Ions with High Capacitance and Fast Ion Transport
2020, Liang, Mingxing, Wang, Lei, Presser, Volker, Dai, Xiaohu, Yu, Fei, Ma, Jie
The recent advances in chloride‐ion capturing electrodes for capacitive deionization (CDI) are limited by the capacity, rate, and stability of desalination. This work introduces Ti3C2Tx/Ag synthesized via a facile oxidation‐reduction method and then uses it as an anode for chloride‐ion capture in CDI. Silver nanoparticles are formed successfully and uniformly distributed with the layered‐structure of Ti3C2Tx. All Ti3C2Tx/Ag samples are hydrophilic, which is beneficial for water desalination. Ti3C2Tx/Ag samples with a low charge transfer resistance exhibit both pseudocapacitive and battery behaviors. Herein, the Ti3C2Tx/Ag electrode with a reaction time of 3 h exhibits excellent desalination performance with a capacity of 135 mg Cl− g−1 at 20 mA g−1 in a 10 × 10−3 m NaCl solution. Furthermore, low energy consumption of 0.42 kWh kg−1 Cl− and a desalination rate of 1.5 mg Cl− g−1 min−1 at 50 mA g−1 is achieved. The Ti3C2Tx/Ag system exhibits fast rate capability, high desalination capacity, low energy consumption, and excellent cyclability, which can be ascribed to the synergistic effect between the battery and pseudocapacitive behaviors of the Ti3C2Tx/Ag hybrid material. This work provides fundamental insight into the coupling of battery and pseudocapacitive behaviors during Cl− capture for electrochemical desalination.
Ionophobicity of carbon sub-nanometer pores enables efficient desalination at high salinity
2022, Zhang, Yuan, Prehal, Christian, Jiang, Huili, Liu, Yang, Feng, Guang, Presser, Volker
Electrochemical seawater desalination has drawn significant attention as an energy-efficient technique to address the global issue of water remediation. Microporous carbons, that is, carbons with pore sizes smaller than 2 nm, are commonly used for capacitive deionization. However, micropores are ineffective for capacitive deionization at high molar strength because of their inability to permselectively uptake ions. In our work, we combine experimental work with molecular dynamics simulation and reveal the ability of sub-nanometer pores (ultramicropores) to effectively desalinate aqueous media at seawater-like molar strength. This is done without any ion-exchange membrane. The desalination capacity in 600 mM reaches 12 mg/g, with a charge efficiency of 94% and high cycling stability over 200 cycles (97% of charge efficiency retention). Using molecular dynamic simulations and providing experimental data, our work makes it possible both to understand and to calculate desalination capacity and charge efficiency at high molar strength as a function of pore size.
Best practice for electrochemical water desalination data generation and analysis
2023, Torkamanzadeh, Mohammad, Kök, Cansu, Burger, Peter Rolf, Ren, Panyu, Zhang, Yuan, Lee, Juhan, Kim, Choonsoo, Presser, Volker
Electrochemical desalination shows promise for ion-selective, energy-efficient water desalination. This work reviews performance metrics commonly used for electrochemical desalination. We provide a step-by-step guide on acquiring, processing, and calculating raw desalination data, emphasizing informative and reliable figures of merit. A typical experiment uses calibrated conductivity probes to relate measured conductivity to concentration. Using a standard electrochemical desalination cell with activated carbon electrodes, we demonstrate the calculation of desalination capacity, charge efficiency, energy consumption, and ion selectivity metrics. We address potential pitfalls in performance metric calculations, including leakage current (charge) considerations and aging of conductivity probes, which can lead to inaccurate results. The relationships between pH, temperature, and conductivity are explored, highlighting their influence on final concentrations. Finally, we provide a checklist for calculating performance metrics and planning electrochemical desalination tests to ensure accuracy and reliability. Additionally, we offer simplified spreadsheet tools to aid data processing, system design, estimations, and upscaling.