From metal-organic frameworks to porous carbons: A promising strategy to prepare high-performance electrode materials for capacitive deionization

Capacitive deionization (CDI) is an emerging desalination technology that has attracted wide attention. Generally, porous carbons with high specific surface area are considered as ideal electrode materials for CDI application. Despite the progress achieved to date, synthesis of porous carbons with a controllable specific surface area has rarely succeeded. To address this issue, here a new strategy to prepare high-performance CDI electrode materials was proposed by direct carbonization of Zn-containing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). The results indicate that through controlling Zn/C ratio in MOFs, the resultant porous carbons display a controllable specific surface area, and thus exhibit a superior electrosorption performance. It should be believed that the strategy in this work will provide an effective route to prepare high-performance CDI electrode materials.