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www.rsc.org/materials Volume 22 | Number 41 | 7 November 2012 | Pages 21781–22310<br />
ISSN 0959-9428<br />
COMMUNICATION<br />
Jieshan Qiu et al.<br />
Hierarchical activated carbon nanofiber webs with tuned structure fabricated by<br />
electrospinning for capacitive deionization<br />
0959-9428(2012)22:41;1-C
Journal of<br />
Materials Chemistry<br />
Dynamic Article Links C <<br />
Cite this: J. Mater. Chem., 2012, 22, 21819<br />
www.rsc.org/materials<br />
COMMUNICATION<br />
Hierarchical activated carbon nanofiber webs with tuned structure fabricated<br />
by electrospinning for capacitive deionization<br />
<strong>Downloaded</strong> on 06 October 2012<br />
Published on 10 September 2012 on http://pubs.rsc.org | doi:10.1039/C2JM34890J<br />
Gang Wang, a Qiang Dong, a Zheng Ling, a Chao Pan, ab Chang Yu a and Jieshan Qiu* a<br />
Received 24th July 2012, Accepted 28th August 2012<br />
DOI: 10.1039/c2jm34890j<br />
Novel hierarchical activated carbon nanofiber (ACF) webs with<br />
tuned structure have been fabricated by incorporating carbon black<br />
(CB) into an electrospun polymer solution, followed by heat treatment.<br />
The as-made electrospun ACF webs show superior capacities<br />
as electrode materials in capacitive deionization (CDI) for desalination<br />
due to their advantageous hierarchical structures.<br />
The consumption and sustainable supply of fresh water have become<br />
one of the top priority issues faced by the global community. 1 In the<br />
past few years, the capacitive deionization (CDI) technology for<br />
desalination of salt water has drawn much attention because of its<br />
potential as an energy-efficient alternative to membrane desalination<br />
and thermal processes currently available for producing fresh water<br />
from salted water sources. 2–10 For the CDI technology, electrode<br />
materials with tuned pore structure and functions, such as conductivity,<br />
are the key to an efficient desalination process. 11 Up to now, a<br />
number of porous carbons with different forms and textures have<br />
been tested as electrosorptive electrodes. 12–15 Unfortunately, the<br />
desalination performance of the electrodes made of conventional<br />
porous carbons such as microporous carbon particles or powders is<br />
far from satisfactory because some micropores in the electrodes are<br />
not accessible to ions. 16 As such, hierarchical porous carbons with<br />
well-defined pore structures are highly desirable, 17,18 in which<br />
micropores, mesopores and macropores are connected well in a<br />
balanced way. The micropores would help lead to an enhanced<br />
electrical double-layer capacitance, the mesopores would provide<br />
low-resistance pathways and channels for the ions through the<br />
porous fibers, while the macropores would function as ion-buffering<br />
reservoirs to minimize the diffusion distances to the interior surfaces<br />
of the porous carbons. 19,20 With this in mind, several kinds of new<br />
carbon materials such as carbon aerogel, 21 carbon nanotubes, 22 graphene<br />
23 and ordered mesoporous carbon 24 have been tested as the<br />
electrode materials for the CDI process. Of the tested carbon materials,<br />
carbon aerogels with a monolithic structure are found to be one<br />
of the promising electrode materials for CDI systems because they<br />
have controllable mesopore size distribution and better solid phase<br />
a<br />
Carbon Research Laboratory, Liaoning Key Lab for Energy Materials<br />
and Chemical Engineering, State Key Lab of Fine Chemicals, Dalian<br />
University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China. E-mail: jqiu@dlut.edu.<br />
cn; Fax: +86 411 84986080; Tel: +86 411 84986024<br />
b<br />
College of Science, Dalian Ocean University, Dalian 116023, China<br />
conductivity, but some bottle-neck problems such as high production<br />
cost and poor mechanical properties limit the carbon aerogels for<br />
practical use as an ideal electrode material in CDI. 25<br />
Electrospinning is a simple yet effective technique that is capable of<br />
fabricating continuous nanofiber webs. 26 In the literature, there are<br />
several reports on the synthesis of self-standing thin webs consisting<br />
of porous carbon nanofibers for energy storage applications, 27,28 but<br />
to our best knowledge, little has been done about the potential of<br />
activated carbon nanofiber (ACF) webs made by electrospinning for<br />
CDI. The concerned ACF webs featuring high porosity and freestanding<br />
nanofibers are expected to be an excellent alternative as<br />
electrode materials in CDI. This has been partly demonstrated<br />
recently by our work that electrospun ACF webs with relatively<br />
developed microporous structure show a high desalination capacity<br />
as CDI electrodes. 29 Nevertheless, there is still room for further<br />
enhancing their desalination capacity, which can be done by further<br />
optimizing the porous structure. Here we report a new strategy for<br />
fabricating hierarchical ACF webs with tuned structure for CDI by<br />
electrospinning, in which carbon black (CB) was incorporated or<br />
embedded in situ into the electrospun ACF webs that were subsequently<br />
activated in flowing CO 2 to tailor the hierarchical pore size<br />
distribution. This helps greatly improve the conductivity and the saltremoval<br />
capacity of the ACF webs that are free-standing and have a<br />
monolithic hierarchical structure with a well-developed yet balanced<br />
micro-, meso- and macro-porosity. In this novel strategy reported<br />
here, no binders are used in contrast to the traditional methods. This<br />
makes it possible to fabricate electrodes with an improved saltremoval<br />
capacity that is much better than other carbon electrodes for<br />
CDI reported in literature. 30,31<br />
The as-made ACF/CB900 webs have a smooth surface (see<br />
Fig. 1a), and are robust and flexible yet free-standing (see Fig. 1b).<br />
Because of this, they can be folded like non-woven cloth, and can<br />
be rolled up easily into a scroll. The continuous skeletons of the<br />
ACF/CB900 webs help reduce the internal resistance of the electrodes,<br />
11 and result in a large electrosorption capacity. The SEM<br />
image in Fig. 1c shows a composite web with 5 wt% CB loading, in<br />
which some small nanoparticles of agglomerated CB can be seen, as<br />
marked in Fig. 1c in the white circles. It seems that the fibers in the<br />
ACF/CB900 webs (Fig. 1d) have a morphology differing from those<br />
without any CB (Fig. 1e and f), and the agglomerated CB would<br />
cause some changes of the smooth cylindrical shape of the fibers to<br />
some degree. In the electrospinning step, the CB particles are oriented<br />
along the electrospinning needle created ‘streamlines’ in the PAN<br />
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Fig. 1 (a) and (b) optical images of ACF/CB900 webs; (c) and (d) SEM images of ACF/CB900 surface; (e) and (f) SEM images of ACF900 surface; (g)<br />
TEM image of ACF/CB900 webs, where small nanoparticles of CB can be seen, as shown in white circles in (c).<br />
solution due to the elongation effect of the fluid jet, and the<br />
agglomerated CB particles are visually parallel to the long-axis of<br />
individual fibers, as evidenced in Fig. 1d. A typical TEM image<br />
(Fig. 1g) shows clearly that the CB particles are embedded in the<br />
PAN-based nanofiber matrix and some pores are formed both in the<br />
nanofibers and in the junction between the nanofiber and CB that<br />
possibly results from the CO 2 activation.<br />
It has been found that the electrical conductivity of the composite<br />
webs can be significantly improved by the embedded CB. The electrical<br />
resistance for the ACF900 webs without CB is 4.61 U cm on<br />
average, while for ACF/CB900 webs with CB, it is only 1.65 U cm.<br />
This significant reduction in the electrical resistance of ACF/CB900<br />
webs is obviously due to the embedded CB in the ACF. Because of<br />
this, the electrical conductivity of ACF/CB900 webs increases by 3<br />
times in comparison to the pristine ACF900 webs without any CB.<br />
This is beneficial for the formation of an electrical double-layer for<br />
charge storage that finally leads to a good capacitive deionization<br />
performance. 22,32<br />
Fig. 2a shows the N 2 adsorption–desorption isotherms of ACF900<br />
and ACF/CB900 webs. According to the IUPAC classification, the<br />
adsorption isotherms of the ACF900 webs are typical type I, indicative<br />
of the dominance of micropores in the porous structure. For the<br />
ACF900 web, its BET surface area is 656 m 2 g 1 (Fig. 2a inset) and its<br />
average pore diameter is 2.3 nm. While for the ACF/CB900 web with<br />
a hysteresis loop at a relative pressure P/P 0 ¼ 0.4–1.0, its surface area<br />
is 428 m 2 g 1 and its average pore diameter is 3.3 nm. The nitrogen<br />
adsorption curves feature typical combined characteristics of type I/II<br />
behaviours due to the capillary condensation in the mesopores and<br />
macropores. 33 The PSDs of ACF900 and ACF/CB900 webs calculated<br />
by dislocalized density function theory (DLDFT) method are<br />
shown in Fig. 2b. Obviously, in comparison with the pristine ACF<br />
with a mesopore ratio of 8%, the ACF/CB900 has a higher mesopore<br />
ratio of 40%, implying that some micropores have merged and<br />
transformed into mesopores with a pore size smaller than 5 nm. For<br />
this phenomenon, the possible reason is below. 34 Firstly, CB used in<br />
the present work has a higher mesopore and macropore volume.<br />
Secondly, more new mesopores are created between the CB and the<br />
PAN matrix due to phase separation and poor contacts, and thirdly,<br />
the incorporation of CB within the ACF leads to some larger pores<br />
due to the difference in shrinkage between the PAN and CB in the<br />
CO 2 burn-off step. The macropores in the ACF/CB900 sample are<br />
actually a combined contribution both from the pores in CB and<br />
from the interconnected open channels between the nanofibers<br />
interconnected in the 3D architecture. Because of these combined<br />
effects, both the mesopore–macropore ratio and the average pore size<br />
of ACF/CB900 webs are higher than the pristine ACF webs, as can<br />
be seen in Fig. 2b inset. The results have evidenced that the<br />
Fig. 2 (a) Nitrogen adsorption–desorption isotherms, inset is the BET,<br />
mesopore volume and mesopore ratio of the corresponding samples; (b)<br />
the micropore and meso-macro-pore size distributions (inset) of ACF900<br />
and ACF/CB900 webs.<br />
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incorporation of CB in the electrospinning process can result in a<br />
well-developed hierarchical pore structure that leads to lower resistance<br />
and shorter diffusion pathways of species in the CDI process.<br />
The as-made webs were tested as the CDI electrode in a batch-type<br />
electrosorptive setup operated at 1.6 V. The CDI cell was constructed<br />
by directly attaching the webs to a graphite current collector. The<br />
CDI cell was first washed with deionized water until the solution<br />
conductivity reached the pure water level. Fig. 3a shows the<br />
adsorptive capacity of electrodes made of ACF/CB900 web and<br />
activated carbon powder (AC). It can be seen that for the ACF/<br />
CB900 electrode, the desalination capacity is much higher than the<br />
AC electrode, and increases more drastically in the initial stage, and<br />
after 60 min, it gradually increases until equilibrium is reached. The<br />
web-like ACF electrode has more benefits than the electrode made of<br />
traditional powder-like AC that must be mixed and combined with a<br />
polymer binder, and the binder would block some of the pores in the<br />
activated carbon material thus increasing the internal resistance,<br />
which subsequently results in a lower adsorption capacity. 12,35,36<br />
To clarify the effect of CB on the desalination of the as-made ACF<br />
electrodes, the desalination capacities of the ACF and the ACF/CB<br />
web electrodes activated at different temperatures are compared, as<br />
shown in Fig. 3b. The ACF/CB electrode shows a much higher<br />
electrosorption capacity than the ACF electrode without CB. For the<br />
ACFs activated at 700 C, the electrosorption capacity of the ACF/<br />
CB electrode is 1.99 mg g 1 , while in the case of the ACF electrode, it<br />
is only 0.92 mg g 1 . The electrosorption capacity of the electrode with<br />
CB activated at 700 C is 116% higher than the ACF electrode<br />
without CB. As the activation temperature increases from 700 Cto<br />
Fig. 4 Electrosorption and regeneration cycles of the ACF/CB900<br />
electrode (left), and applied voltage curves vs. time (right), for which the<br />
test conditions are V NaCl ¼ 50 mL, C 0 ¼ 90 mg L 1 , and M ¼ 0.224 g.<br />
900 C, the electrosorption capacity for all of the electrodes increases<br />
continuously. An electrosorption capacity of 9.13 mg g 1 is achieved<br />
for the ACF/CB900 electrode, which is 90% higher than the electrosorption<br />
capacity of the ACF900 electrode, which is only 4.8 mg<br />
g 1 . In general, the electrosorption capacity of the ACF/CB electrodes<br />
increases by 84–116% in comparison to the ACF electrode<br />
without CB, depending on the activation temperature. The excellent<br />
CDI performance of the ACF/CB electrodes can be attributed to the<br />
hierarchical pore size distribution resulting from the incorporation<br />
and embedment of CB in the electrospinning process.<br />
One of the parameters of key concern for CDI cells is their lifelong<br />
performance. 37 To evaluate the reversibility of the electrosorption<br />
capacity of the CDI cells, tests for cyclic operation and regeneration<br />
were performed, in which the solution with an initial conductivity of<br />
197 mS cm 1 was used. It should be noted that the reversed voltage<br />
of 1.6 V was only applied for 5 min at the beginning of the<br />
regeneration cycle, and the flow rate was increased from 5 mL min 1<br />
to 60 mL min 1 , and this shortens the duration of the ion-release step<br />
from the electrode. However, according to ref. 9, the duration of the<br />
regeneration step is generally equal to the duration of the electrosorption<br />
step if the reversed applied voltage is kept at a constant value<br />
of 0 V. In our case, the adsorption time was 150 min while the<br />
regeneration time used was 100 min, and this is more advantageous in<br />
practice. Fig. 4 shows the variation of the solution conductivity over 4<br />
cycles of adsorption and regeneration, which has evidenced that the<br />
reversibility of the CDI cells is excellent, i.e. the high performance<br />
electrosorption process can be repeated satisfactorily for the CDI cells<br />
Fig. 3 (a) Electrosorption capacities of ACF/CB900 web and AC electrodes<br />
as a function of time in CDI; and (b) the desalination capacity of<br />
ACF and ACF/CB web electrodes activated at different temperatures, for<br />
which the test conditions are V cell ¼ 1.6 V, V NaCl ¼ 50 mL, and C 0 ¼<br />
90 mg L 1 .<br />
Fig. 5<br />
Schematic of the CDI set-up.<br />
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in our work. This has been repeated over 20 times and no decline in<br />
the electrosorption capacity is observed.<br />
Conclusions<br />
In summary, we have developed a simple yet effective strategy to<br />
make free-standing ACF electrodes with well-developed hierarchical<br />
porous structure that show excellent performance in CDI water<br />
desalination. The micro-meso-macroporous structures of the asmade<br />
ACFs can be tuned by incorporating mesoporous carbon<br />
blacks with good electric conductivity in the electrospinning process<br />
followed by CO 2 activation. The ACF web electrodes with a balanced<br />
hierarchical structure help overcome the mass-transport limitation<br />
that is an intrinsic shortcoming for micropore dominated materials.<br />
The novel materials reported here exhibit a high capacity for salt<br />
removal, and are of potential use in CDI desalination as electrodes.<br />
The desalination performance of the ACF web electrodes can be<br />
further improved by optimizing the properties of CB and the process<br />
parameters such as the weight ratio of CB to ACF in the precursor.<br />
Experimental<br />
Materials<br />
The precursor polyacrylonitrile (PAN, M w ¼ 150 000) and solvent<br />
N,N-dimethyl formamide (DMF) were obtained from Aldrich<br />
Chemical Co (USA). Carbon black (CB, ketjen EC-600JD, Japan)<br />
with a mesopore surface area of 393 m 2 g 1 wasusedasafillerof<br />
electrospun activated carbon nanofiber (ACF). For comparison,<br />
powder-like coconut shell-based activated carbon (AC) was used as<br />
an electrode material, of which the BET surface area was 917 m 2 g 1<br />
and the average pore diameter was 2.2 nm.<br />
Preparation method<br />
The PAN-based fibers were prepared by electrospinning using a<br />
10 wt% PAN solution in DMF, and the CB-embedded PAN-based<br />
fibers were prepared by electrospinning using a composite solution<br />
made of 5 wt% CB in 10 wt% PAN solution in DMF. The solution<br />
was sonicated for 2 h to ensure that the CB was dispersed uniformly<br />
before being mixed with the PAN. The two kinds of polymer solutions<br />
with/without CB were electrospun from a syringe tip onto a<br />
rotating metal drum wrapped in aluminium foil. Below are the<br />
conditions for electrospinning: a feeding rate of 1.0 mL h 1 polymer<br />
solution, a supplied voltage of 22 kV, a tip to drum distance of 15 cm,<br />
and a drum rotation rate of 300 rpm. The electrospun fiber webs were<br />
heated at 1 Cmin 1 and stabilized at 280 Cinairfor2h.The<br />
stabilized fibers were activated in flowing CO 2 for 0.5 h at 700–900<br />
C, resulting in ACF webs denoted as ACFX and ACF/CBX (CB<br />
containing ACF), where X stands for the activation temperature.<br />
Measurements<br />
The morphology and structures of the samples were examined using<br />
scanning electron microscopy (SEM, Hitachi S-4700, Japan) and<br />
transmission electron microscopy (TEM, FEI Tecnai G20, USA).<br />
The specific surface area was measured by nitrogen adsorption<br />
(ASAP2020, Micromeritics, USA). The electrical resistance was<br />
measured 5 times with a four-probe method at room temperature, of<br />
which the values were averaged.<br />
Schematic of the CDI set-up<br />
Activated carbon electrode was fabricated using direct coating<br />
method. 38 A carbon slurry was prepared as a suspension of activated<br />
carbon powder, acetylene black and poly(vinylidene fluoride) in dimethylacetamide<br />
in a weight ratio of 75 : 10 : 15. The slurry mixture<br />
was stirred for 6 h before being cast onto a graphite sheet to make a<br />
300 mm thick coating. The coated electrode was dried at 80 Cunder<br />
vacuum for 4 h to get rid of the organic solvent.<br />
The webs were used as CDI electrodes and directly attached to the<br />
graphite current collectors to make a CDI cell. The adsorption<br />
removal efficiency of ions on the web electrodes with a weight of ca.<br />
0.2 g was measured at 25 C in a flow-through setup, as shown in<br />
Fig. 5. For each run, the solution was continuously pumped into the<br />
cell at a rate of 5 mL min 1 using a peristaltic pump (Loner BT100,<br />
China). During the measurement, the potential difference between<br />
the two electrodes was kept at a constant voltage of V cell ¼ 1.6 V<br />
using a programmable DC power supply (PST-3202, Gwinstek,<br />
Taiwan). All experiments were conducted with a C 0 ¼ 90 mg L 1<br />
(197 mScm 1 ) NaCl solution. The variation of NaCl concentration in<br />
the solution was continuously monitored using an ion conductivity<br />
meter (ET915, eDAQ TECH, Australia). In the regeneration process,<br />
the flow rate was kept at 60 mL min 1 . After applying a reverse<br />
voltage of 1.6Vfor5min,itwasswitchedto0Vuntiltheregeneration<br />
process ended.<br />
The electrosorptive capacity (Q t ) is defined as below:<br />
Q t ¼ ðC 0 C t ÞV NaCl<br />
(1)<br />
M<br />
where C 0 (mg L 1 ) is the initial concentration of NaCl, C t is the<br />
instantaneous concentration of NaCl measured at time t; V NaCl is<br />
the solution volume (mL); and M is the mass of the ACF web<br />
electrodes (g).<br />
Acknowledgements<br />
We thank Prof. Yury Gogotsi at Drexel University, USA, for useful<br />
discussion. This work was partly supported by the Dalian Science<br />
and Technology Bureau of China (no. 2010A17GX095), the<br />
Research Start-up Fund in DUT (no. DUT12RC(3)04), and the<br />
NSFC (nos. 20836002, 51102033).<br />
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