Electrochimica Acta, Vol.279, 24-33, 2018
Investigation on the effect of organic dye molecules on capacitive deionization of sodium sulfate salt solution using activated carbon cloth electrodes
Capacitive deionization (CDI) is an emerging electrochemical desalination technique for the energy-efficient removal of dissolved ions from aqueous solution. This is a first research attempt which describes the influence of dye molecules on capacitive deionization of salt solution. In this regard, a CDI flow cell has been fabricated and tested in order to scrutinize the electrosorptive removal of three different dye molecules such as amido black 10B (AB) (acidic dye), eosin yellow (EY) (neutral dye) and methyl violet (MV) (basic dye) from synthetic aqueous solutions. The electrosorption capacitance was analyzed by cyclic voltammetry cell and CDI flow cell using activated carbon cloth (ACC) electrodes with 1 cm(2) and 24 cm(2) surface areas respectively. The capacitance values of 106 and 99 F/g correspondingly were obtained for a steady-state CV and CDI flow cell with 50mM Na2SO4 electrolyte solution. In addition to this, the dye removal efficiency was also examined by a CDI flow cell for the solution containing 10 ppm of dye and 500 ppm of Na2SO4. The experimental results substantiate that EY exhibits strong adsorption during charging and strong desorption during discharge cycle when compared with other two dye molecules (AB & MV). Conclusively, electrosorption of dye molecules at the carbon cloth electrodes surface was found in the following order: EY > AB > MV. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.