Carbon aerogels electrode with reduced graphene oxide additive for capacitive deionization with enhanced performance

Carbon aerogels (CAs) electrodes with reduced graphene oxide (RGO) additive were fabricated and used as electrosorption electrodes. The capacitive deionization (CDI) performance of the CAs electrodes with different proportions of RGO was investigated. The results show that the CAs electrodes with RGO additive exhibit better electrosorption performance compared with pure CAs electrodes and an electrode with acetylene black additive, indicating that RGO can serve as a flexible bridge to form a "plane-to-point" (RGO-to-CAs) conducting network, which can improve the electron transfer within the CAs electrode. The CAs electrode with 15 wt% RGO was further used in membrane capacitive deionization which integrates ion-exchange membranes with CDI and an extremely high desalination efficiency of 98% was obtained.