Nanoporous graphene based materials are a promising nanostructured carbon for energy storage and electrosorption applications. We present a novel and facile strategy for fabrication of asymmetrically functionalized microporous activated graphene electrodes for high performance capacitive desalination and disinfection of brackish water. Briefly, thiocarbohydrazide coated silica nanoparticles intercalated graphene sheets are used as a sacrificial material for creating mesoporous graphene followed by alkaline activation process. This fabrication procedure meets the ideal desalination pore diameter with ultrahigh specific surface area ∼ 2680 m² g^–1 of activated 3D graphene based micropores. The obtained activated graphene electrode is modified by carboxymethyl cellulose as negative charge (COO^–2) and disinfectant quaternary ammonium cellulose with positively charged polyatomic ions of the structure (NR₄⁺). Our novel asymmetric coated microporous activated 3D graphene employs nontoxic water-soluble binder which increases the surface wettability and decreases the interfacial resistance and moreover improves the electrode flexibility compared with organic binders. The desalination performance of the fabricated electrodes was evaluated by carrying out single pass mode experiment under various cell potentials with symmetric and asymmetric cells. The asymmetric charge coated microporous activated graphene exhibits exceptional electrosorption capacity of 18.43 mg g^–1 at a flow rate of 20 mL min^–1 upon applied cell potential of 1.4 V with initial NaCl concentration of 300 mg L^–1, high charge efficiency, excellent recyclability, and, moreover, good antibacterial behavior. The present strategy provides a new avenue for producing ultrapure water via green capacitive deionization technology.

Capacitive deionization (CDI) is strongly recommended as an environmentally friendly and economical technique for removing salt ions from saline water. In this study, highly efficient hollow carbon nanofiber electrodes for capacitive deionization were prepared using co-axial electrospinning of poly(methyl methacrylate) (core) and poly(acrylonitrile) (shell) polymer solutions, followed by oxidative stabilization and then carbonization. The morphology, pore structure and electrochemical performance were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), nitrogen adsorption–desorption isotherms, and cyclic voltammetry, respectively. The synthesized hollow carbon nanofibers had a specific capacitance of 222.3 F g⁻¹, which is almost 4 times higher than the corresponding value for solid carbon nanofibers (63 F g⁻¹). Moreover, the surface area of the hollow nanofibers (186 m² g⁻¹) was 10 times greater compared to the surface area of solid carbon nanofibers (17.7 m² g⁻¹). Accordingly, the salt ion electrosorption capacity of the modified carbon nanofibers was greatly enhanced; the hollow nanofibers exhibited an excellent desalination performance (∼86%) and a better cycling ability. These properties are attributed to the hollow structure. Overall, the proposed modification to carbon nanofibers makes them adequate not only for use as promising electrodes for the CDI process but also for any application requiring carbonaceous materials with a high specific surface area.

Water disinfection materials should ideally be broad-spectrum-active, nonleachable, and noncontaminating to the liquid needing sterilization. Herein, we demonstrate a high-performance capacitive deionization disinfection (CDID) electrode made by coating an activated carbon (AC) electrode with cationic nanohybrids of graphene oxide-graft-quaternized chitosan (GO-QC). Our GO-QC/AC CDID electrode can achieve at least 99.9999% killing (i.e., 6 log reduction) of Escherichia coli in water flowing continuously through the CDID cell. Without the GO-QC coating, the AC electrode alone cannot kill the bacteria and adsorbs a much smaller fraction (<82.8 ± 1.8%) of E. coli from the same biocontaminated water. Our CDID process consists of alternating cycles of water disinfection followed by electrode regeneration, each a few minutes duration, so that this water disinfection process can be continuous and it only needs a small electrode voltage (2 V). With a typical brackish water biocontamination (with 10⁴ CFU mL^–1 bacteria), the GO-QC/AC electrodes can kill 99.99% of the E. coli in water for 5 h. The disinfecting GO-QC is securely attached on the AC electrode surface, so that it is noncontaminating to water, unlike many other chemicals used today. The GO-QC nanohybrids have excellent intrinsic antimicrobial properties in suspension form. Further, the GO component contributes toward the needed surface conductivity of the CDID electrode. This CDID process offers an economical method toward ultrafast, contaminant-free, and continuous killing of bacteria in biocontaminated water. The proposed strategy introduces a green in situ disinfectant approach for water purification.