Issue 7, 2016

Design and fabrication of a graphene/carbon nanotubes/activated carbon hybrid and its application for capacitive deionization

Abstract

In this work, graphene/carbon nanotubes (CNTs)/activated carbon (AC) (GTAC) hybrids were designed and fabricated by combing graphene, CNTs with AC into one new type of hybrid and applied as capacitive deionization (CDI) electrodes. The morphology, structure and electrochemical performance of the GTAC were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, nitrogen adsorption–desorption, cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The results show that the GTAC with 72 wt% CNTs, 8 wt% graphene and 20 wt% AC exhibits the best electrochemical performance among all the samples. When used as a CDI electrode, GTAC exhibits a higher electrosorption capacity of 2.30 mg g−1 than those of optimized graphene/AC (1.10 mg g−1), graphene/CNTs (1.06 mg g−1) and CNTs/AC (0.96 mg g−1) in this work. The higher electrosorption capacity of GTAC can be ascribed to the superiority of the “plane-to-line-to-point” (graphene-to-CNTs-to-AC) conducting network. This result demonstrates that GTAC should be a promising candidate as a CDI electrode.

Graphical abstract: Design and fabrication of a graphene/carbon nanotubes/activated carbon hybrid and its application for capacitive deionization

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
08 Nov 2015
Accepted
06 Jan 2016
First published
08 Jan 2016

RSC Adv., 2016,6, 5817-5823

Author version available

Design and fabrication of a graphene/carbon nanotubes/activated carbon hybrid and its application for capacitive deionization

G. Zhu, W. Wang, X. Li, J. Zhu, H. Wang and L. Zhang, RSC Adv., 2016, 6, 5817 DOI: 10.1039/C5RA23547B

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements