Hybrid capacitive deionization of NaCl and toxic heavy metal ions using faradic electrodes of silver nanospheres decorated pomegranate peel-derived activated carbon

Capacitive deionization (CDI) is an evolving technology for eradicating salt and toxic heavy metal ions from brackish wastewater. However, traditional CDI electrodes have lower salt adsorption capacity and inadequate adsorption of selective metal ions for long-term operations. Herein, Ag nanospheres incorporated pomegranate peel-derived activated carbon (Ag/P-AC) was prepared and implied to the CDI process for removing NaCl, toxic mono-, di-, and trivalent metal ions. Morphological analysis revealed that the 80-100 nm-sized Ag nanospheres were uniformly decorated on the surfaces of P-AC nanosheets. The Ag/P-AC has a higher specific surface area (640 m² g⁻¹), superior specific capacitance (180 F g⁻¹ at 50 mV s⁻¹) and a lower charge transfer resistance (0.5 Ω cm²). CDI device was fabricated by Ag/P-AC as an anode, which adsorbed anions and P-AC as cathode for adsorption of positively charged ions at 1.2 V in an initial salt concentration of 1000 mg L⁻¹. An asymmetric Ag/P-AC//P-AC exhibited a maximum NaCl adsorption capacity of 36 mg g⁻¹ than symmetric P-AC//P-AC electrodes (22.7 mg g⁻¹). Furthermore, Pb(II), Cd(II), F⁻, and As(III) ions were successfully removed from simulated wastewater by using Ag/P-AC//P-AC based CDI system. These asymmetric CDI-electrodes have an excellent prospect for the removal of salt and toxic contaminants in industrial wastewater.