Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Freshwater scarcity demands desalination technologies that are efficient, scalable, and sustainable. Capacitive deionisation (CDI) is promising but remains limited by inefficient ion adsorption and poor charge utilisation. Here, we show that suitably chosen polyampholytic block copolymer grafting can substantially enhance CDI performance, via a combination of dipolar response and steric effects. Using mean-field classical density functional theory and grand-canonical Monte Carlo simulations, we demonstrate that such polymer grafted electrodes enable strongly improved desalination performance, without altering the pore architecture. Even an electrode grafting by simple neutral polymers can generate an improvement, although a suitably designed block polymer architecture offers an additional performance gain. These results establish interfacial block copolymer grafting as a powerful route toward high-performance, membrane-free desalination.
Source: Physical Review Letters
DOI: 10.1103/zkrf-mcwf
Authors: Mamta Yadav, Clifford E. Woodward, Jan Forsman
Language: English
Subfield: Biomedical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Vetenskapsrådet
OpenAlex ID: W7154999906
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