New paper published in ChemSusChem shows the high desalination performance that can be achieved with the use of lignin-derived activated carbon. Considering the low cost and high availability of lignin, lignin-derived activated carbons are very attractive electrode materials. Our work show the importance to carefully balance the potential and charge of a desalination cell and to carefully consider the intrinsic chemical charge. Only by doing so, we were able to capitalize on the beneficial properties of lignin-derived activated carbon; a “conventional” symmetric cell yielded only a very poor performance instead.