Enhanced salt-removal percentage in capacitive deionization with addition of ion-exchange membrane using carbon electrode synthesized with freezing thawing method

Abstract

Ion-exchange membrane technology has shown a great potential to enhance the desalting efficiency. Ion-exchange membranes are placed in front of the electrodes so that the charged ions can be selectively passed through the membrane layer and captured by the oppositely charged electrode more quickly, so as to increase the efficiency of desalination. In this research, carbon electrodes have been synthesized from an activated carbon (700 – 1400 m2/g) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a binder using freezing thawing method. A solution with 180 µS/cm NaCl was pumped to the capacitive deionization (CDI) cell using a Boyu Submersible pump (model SP-601) at a flow rate of 25 mL/min and the voltage was set at 2 V. The result showed that the CDI cell with ion-exchange membrane (MCDI) has the salt removal efficiency greater than the CDI cell without ion-exchange membrane. The salt-removal percentage of MCDI was achieved at 66.36%, meanwhile the CDI cell without ion-exchange membrane resulted in 54.4%.