Abstract
Carbon materials have the advantages of good electrical conductivity and excellent chemical stability, so many carbon materials have been introduced as electrodes for the capacitive deionization (CDI) process. Due to the low surface area compared to the other nanocarbonaceous materials, CNFs performance as electrode in the CDI units is comparatively low. This problem has been overcome by preparing high surface area carbon nanofibers and by creating numerous long pores on the nanofibers surface. The modified CNFs have been synthesized using low cost, high yield and facile method; electrospinning technique. Stabilization and graphitization of electrospun nanofiber mats composed of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) leads form longitudinal pores CNFs. The utilized characterizations indicated that the CNFs obtained from electrospun solution having 50% PMMA have surface area of 181 m2/g which are more than the conventional CNFs. Accordingly, these nanofibers revealed salt removal efficiency of ~90% and specific capacitance of 237 F/g.
Highlights
In the last four decades, the number and capacities of desalination units have increased dramatically; 45% Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) and 42% Reverse Osmosis (RO) of world capacity [1]
Many carbon materials have been introduced as electrodes for the Capacitive deionization (CDI) process such as carbon aerogels [4,5], activated carbon (AC) [6,7], activated carbon fiber (ACF) [8,9], carbon nanotubes (CNTs) [10], and Graphene [11,12,13]
The long axial ratio of the Carbon nanofibres (CNFs) leads to decrease the total surface area compared to the other nanostructural carbonaceous materials, this might have negative influence upon utilizing CNFs as electrodes in the CDI process
Summary
In the last four decades, the number and capacities of desalination units have increased dramatically; 45% Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) and 42% Reverse Osmosis (RO) of world capacity [1]. The long axial ratio of the CNFs leads to decrease the total surface area compared to the other nanostructural carbonaceous materials, this might have negative influ-. Recently it was reported that the long axial ratio provides advantage for the nanofibers over the nanoparticles in the electrons transfer-based processes as the nanofibers reveal better performances [14]. Due to the big difference in the thermal properties between the two polymers as PMMA is completely eliminated during the carbonization step [15], the physiochemical characterization indicated that the surface area strongly increases with increasing the PMMA content which positively affects the performance as the nanofibers prepared from PAN/PMMA solution having 50 wt% PMMA reveal higher ions electrosportion compared to the other formulations
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