Composite number

Engineering

Carbon fibers

Physical chemistry

Adsorption

Composite material

Nanotechnology

Electrode

Organic chemistry

Chemistry

Materials science

Desalination

Activated carbon

Capacitive deionization

Capacitance

Membrane

Chemical engineering

Biochemistry

Supercapacitor

Nanofiber

Chemical Engineering Journal

Rocking-chair Capacitive Deionization (RCDI) is one of the most promising cell architectures for highly efficient capacitive deionization (CDI) to address the fresh-water shortage, and developing Cl−-removal electrode materials of RCDI toward highly-efficient desalination (with high capacity and rate) is of utmost urgency. Herein we report our design on high-performance Cl−-removal electrode material via controllable anchoring of bismuth oxychloride nanostructures (BiOCl; such as nanoplates, nanoflowers, and nanospheres) on electrospun carbon nanofibers (BiOCl-CNF) for RCDI. The BiOCl-CNF based RCDI system displays excellent Cl− storage capacitance as well as freestanding characteristics, which enables it to be a perfect electrode candidate for RCDI. By properly tailoring the composition of the hybrid material, the BiOCl-CNF based RCDI displays outstanding desalination efficacy in terms of desalination capacity (124 mg∙g−1), energy consumption (66.8 Wh∙m−3), and desalination rate (0.52 mg‧g−1‧s−1), which are far more superior than the existing systems from the literatures, exemplifying the critical importance of delicate design in the Cl−-removal electrode materials for improving the desalination performance.

Controlled synthesis of bismuth oxychloride-carbon nanofiber hybrid materials as highly efficient electrodes for rocking-chair capacitive deionization