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Porous carbon electrodes from activated wasted coffee grounds for capacitive deionization

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Abstract

Wasted coffee grounds (WCGs) were activated by a pyrolysis process using KOH, where the porosity increased with temperature, exhibiting a micropore-dominant structure. WCGs upon an activation temperature of 800 °C (AWCG800) showed a surface area up to 1856 m2 g−1 and a specific capacitance of 180.3 F g−1 in 1 M NaCl solution at a scan rate of 10 mV s−1. The AWCG800 electrodes showed an electrosorption capacity up to 12.50 and 16.50 mg g−1 in NaCl solution at cell voltages of 1.2 and 1.4 V, respectively, with an initial concentration of 5 mM. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis indicated that AWCG800 maintained a high carbon content of 87 at% upon the activation process. The study suggests a practical way for converting WCGs into mesoporous and microporous carbons with large surface area and pore volume, high carbon component, and good wettability to water, which is promising for capacitive deionization application.

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Funding

This work is sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61804054), the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (18ZR1410400), Shanghai Sailing Program (17YF1403300), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Project No. 222201714017).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, School of Science, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, People’s Republic of China

    Min Qian, Xiao Yang Xuan & Shang Qing Gong

  2. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance, School of Physics and Materials, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, People’s Republic of China

    Li Kun Pan

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  1. Min Qian
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Correspondence to Min Qian.

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Qian, M., Xuan, X.Y., Pan, L.K. et al. Porous carbon electrodes from activated wasted coffee grounds for capacitive deionization. Ionics 25, 3443–3452 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-019-02887-9

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