New work published in Carbon in collaboration with Prof. Choonsoo Kim. In our research, we explore the impact of different carbon types on desalination capacity and rate. We exemplify the impact of conventional carbon black, nanoscaled carbon onions, and micro-mesoporous carbons. In the early cycles, we observed that using AC electrodes without additives resulted in a higher desalination capacity, reaching approximately 10 mg/g. However, there was a trade-off: the desalination rate was slightly lower. It turns out that larger AC particles limited the transportation of ions within the electrode due to the increased diffusion path length.

By incorporating small and less porous additives, we achieved the highest desalination rate (20 μg/g/s) as the additive particles reduced the ion diffusion path length by increasing size dispersion, thus enhancing overall ion transport and desalination rates.