Fabrication of electrospun trace NiO-doped hierarchical porous carbon nanofiber electrode for capacitive deionization

Taimoor Hussain; Yanbo Wang; Zhubiao Xiong; Jianmao Yang; ZhengZheng Xie; Jianyun Liu

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2018.07.129

Fabrication of electrospun trace NiO-doped hierarchical porous carbon nanofiber electrode for capacitive deionization

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2018 Dec 15:532:343-351. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2018.07.129. Epub 2018 Jul 30.

Authors

Taimoor Hussain¹, Yanbo Wang¹, Zhubiao Xiong¹, Jianmao Yang², ZhengZheng Xie¹, Jianyun Liu³

Affiliations

¹ College of Environmental Science and Engineering, State Environmental Protection Engineering Center for Pollution Treatment and Control in Textile Industry, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People's Republic of China; Shanghai Institute of Pollution and Ecological Security, Shanghai 200092, People's Republic of China.
² Research Center for Analysis & Measurement, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People's Republic of China.
³ College of Environmental Science and Engineering, State Environmental Protection Engineering Center for Pollution Treatment and Control in Textile Industry, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People's Republic of China; Shanghai Institute of Pollution and Ecological Security, Shanghai 200092, People's Republic of China. Electronic address: jianyun.liu@dhu.edu.cn.

PMID: 30096528
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2018.07.129

Abstract

Trace nickel oxide-embedded hierarchical porous carbon nanofibers (CNF-NiO) were fabricated by electrospinning polyacrylonitrile-Ni(NO₃)₂ (PAN-Ni) followed by stabilization, carbonization and acid treatment. The resultant CNF-NiO was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, thermo gravimetric analysis and nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherm. The NiO amount and porous structure can be tuned by varying the PAN/Ni ratio and acid treatment time. The electrochemical properties of the electrospun CNF-NiO nanofibers were analyzed by cyclic voltammetry and impedance method. The specific capacity of 157.9 F/g was obtained at the PAN/Ni mass ratio of 90:3 with 3 h HCl wash. This porous CNF-NiO composite has been applied as a self-supporting cathode for capacitive deionization. The desalination amount arrived at 6.2 mg/g, which is 3 times as high as that of the electrospun pure carbon fibers. Longer wash time leads to decreased capacitance and desalination performance.

Keywords: Capacitive deionization; Electrospinning; Hierarchical carbon nanofibers; NiO.