Integrated hierarchical porous lignin-based carbon electrode for boosting membrane-free capacitive deionization areal adsorption capacity

Abstract

The development of high value-added lignin-based functional porous carbon electrodes with excellent properties from sustainable industry lignin powder remains a challenge. This work aims to create robust, binder-free, conductive additives-free, and current collector-free monolithic porous carbon electrodes using industrial lignin powder for membrane-free capacitive deionization (CDI). The material exhibits high mechanical strength, hierarchical porosity structure, large uniform size, and thickness of just a few millimetres (<2.6 mm). In a three-electrode supercapacitor system, the areal specific capacitance of CLCA300-3-1.0 reaches 5.03–1.02 F cm−2 when the scan rate between 1 and 20 mV s−1 in 1 M NaCl solution. As CDI electrodes, the charge efficiency of CLCA300-3-1.0 at different voltages of 1.2 V, 1.4 V and 1.6 V is 0.53, 0.72 and 0.71, respectively. The energy consumption of CLCA280-3-1.0, CLCA300-3-1.0 and CLCA320-3-1.0 tested at 1.2 V are 3.27, 3.40 and 3.25 Wh m−3, respectively. In addition, with thickness increasing to 1.5 mm, the developed CLCA300-3-1.5 electrode exhibits an areal adsorption capacity of 0.46 mg cm−2, and relative highly capacity retention of 84.78 % after 70 cycles. The impressive desalination performance is attributed to the well-designed hierarchical porosity, superhydrophilicity and robust monolithic structure.