Activated carbon electrode and preparation method and application thereof
Technical Field
The invention belongs to the technical field of electrochemistry, and particularly relates to an activated carbon electrode and a preparation method and application thereof.
Background
The preparation and application of the activated carbon electrode are core technologies in capacitive desalination, and the high-efficiency activated carbon electrode has the characteristics of large specific surface area, rich medium pores, high conductivity and the like. The activated carbon electrode is generally soaked in a salt solution for a long time when being applied to capacitor desalting, so that the activated carbon electrode also has good water resistance and can ensure that the activated carbon does not fall off from a current collector after being used for a long time. In addition, the activated carbon particles have high resistance, so that the application of the activated carbon particles in electrochemical capacitance desalination is limited. Therefore, for the preparation of an activated carbon electrode for electrochemical capacitance desalination application, the coating of activated carbon particles and the electrode preparation process should be improved to improve the conductivity and water resistance of the activated carbon electrode. Currently, binders commonly used for preparing activated carbon electrodes include organic binders and inorganic binders. The organic binder comprises polytetrafluoroethylene, partial polytetrafluoroethylene, epoxy resin, phenolic resin, modified starch and the like. However, the use of the organic binder blocks micropores and mesopores of the activated carbon particles, so that the pore utilization rate of the activated carbon is reduced, and the desalting efficiency of the activated carbon electrode is reduced; the organic binder also increases the internal resistance of the activated carbon electrode and reduces the electric energy efficiency of the electrode; in particular, the amount of activated carbon particle coating is typically on the milligram scale when using organic binders, and is too low to meet the practical use criteria for the application of electrodes. In the stirring process of preparing the slurry, the organic binder can enter the micropores of the activated carbon particles, and then after solidification, the micropores are blocked and cannot be utilized; most organic binders cannot conduct electricity, have high resistance and naturally increase the internal resistance of the motor; when the organic binder is used for bonding the activated carbon particles, gaps among the activated carbon particles are large, the activated carbon particles cannot be well combined by a small amount of the organic binder, the performance of the activated carbon particles is rapidly reduced by increasing the organic binder, and the large activated carbon particles are easy to fall off from the surface. The inorganic binder is sodium, potassium water glass, active kaolin, clay, etc. The inorganic binder generally has higher resistance, can increase the internal resistance of the activated carbon electrode, and obviously reduce the electrochemical activity of the electrode; meanwhile, the inorganic binder is difficult to bond the activated carbon particles and the current collector substrate well; the inorganic binder cannot permeate into the surface of the carbon paper or the carbon cloth, and is easily decomposed and dissolved in water after meeting water, so that the inorganic binder cannot be well bound. The organic binder has good wettability with carbon paper or carbon cloth, and the water resistance is far better than that of an inorganic binder, so that the activated carbon particles and the current collector can be well bonded. Furthermore, inorganic binders have poor water resistance, resulting in severe shedding of the activated carbon from the substrate upon contact with water.
In summary, the current binders used for preparing activated carbon electrodes have the defects of poor conductivity and poor water resistance.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention aims to provide an activated carbon electrode and a preparation method and application thereof, and aims to solve the problems of poor conductivity and poor water resistance of a binder used for preparing the activated carbon electrode at present.
The invention is realized by the following steps that the activated carbon electrode comprises, by weight, 30-90 parts of 20-300-mesh activated carbon, 5-40 parts of conductive agent, 5-50 parts of clay, 5-80 parts of carbonizable organic binder and 5-30 parts of deionized water.
Further, the conductive agent is: one or more of acetylene black, graphite powder, carbon nano tubes and carbon fibers.
Further, the clay is one or more of active kaolin, diatomite, medical stone and porous alumina.
Further, the organic binder capable of being carbonized is one or more of modified starch, polytetrafluoroethylene, epoxy resin and phenolic resin.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for preparing the activated carbon electrode, which comprises the following steps:
step one, uniformly mixing activated carbon, a conductive agent and clay, and then adding a carbonizable organic binder and deionized water into the mixture to be uniformly mixed to prepare slurry;
uniformly coating the active substance slurry on an electrode substrate, and drying at 60-160 ℃ for 0.5-3 h;
and step three, placing the primarily dried electrode in a vacuum-pumping or nitrogen-protecting atmosphere furnace, and calcining for 0.5-3 h at 500-1000 ℃ to obtain the coated electrode plate.
Further, the electrode substrate is: carbon paper or carbon cloth.
The invention also aims to provide a capacitive desalination device prepared by the activated carbon electrode.
The activated carbon electrode and the preparation method and application thereof provided by the invention improve the conductivity and water resistance of the activated carbon electrode, and the prepared activated carbon electrode has high practical value in capacitance desalination. The activated carbon electrode is applied to CDI desalination technology, taking the inlet water with 500ppm TDS as an example, the energy consumption is only one fifth of that of RO technology. Calculated by the service life of the equipment in 5 years, the annual operating cost of the equipment with the treatment capacity of 6 tons/hour is about 20000 dollars, which is more than 50 percent lower than that of the similar RO technology. The method can obviously improve the conductivity and the water resistance of the activated carbon electrode while ensuring that the activated carbon electrode has high load capacity, and the prepared activated carbon electrode has excellent performance in electrochemical desalting; at a conductivity of 2000. mu.S.cm-1The specific capacity of the sodium chloride solution for capacitor desalination can reach 14.6mg g-1. The mixed binder is adopted, the conductivity of the activated carbon electrode after high-temperature carbonization is obviously improved, and the utilization rate of current is increased; the organic bonding can not well bond the large particles of the activated carbon, but can well integrate the activated carbon particles and the current collector; activity ofThe carbon particles still have good bonding property, and this proves that the inorganic binder can not well bond the activated carbon particles and the current collector, but can provide good bonding property between the large activated carbon particles.
According to the invention, the method of combining the inorganic binder and the organic binder is adopted, so that the activated carbon electrode has good conductivity while the coating amount of the activated carbon particles is ensured, the activated carbon particles are stably combined with the electrode base material, and the activated carbon electrode has good water resistance, further improves the electrochemical performance of the activated carbon electrode, and greatly reduces the manufacturing cost of the electrode in practical application; the filler contains a certain proportion of carbonizable organic binder, and the high-temperature calcination under the protection of vacuum or nitrogen can not only open the medium pores of more active particles, but also carbonize the organic binder. The carbonized organic binder has good conductivity, and the active carbon particles and the electrode base material are tightly combined together, so that the whole electrode has good conductivity; the filler contains a certain proportion of inorganic binder, so that the active carbon particles are not combined very tightly, and the porosity of the surface of the electrode is properly distributed, so that a salt solution can better enter the surface of the electrode, the utilization rate of the active carbon particles is improved, in a comparative test, the amounts of A, B, C three kinds of electrode active carbon are the same, and the desalting effect of the electrode A is much better than that of the electrode B, C, which indicates that the utilization rate of the active carbon particles of the electrode A is higher than that of the electrode B, C; further improving the electrochemical performance of the activated carbon electrode. And the proportion of the added inorganic binder can be adjusted to adjust the pores on the surface of the activated carbon electrode. As can be seen from the mercury intrusion data chart in the comparative test, the pore size distribution of the electrode A at 45nm is obviously higher than that of the electrode B, C, the pores mainly play a role in capacitive desalination are micropores, the conductivity of the electrode A is far better than that of the electrode B, C, the electron transmission speed is high, and the desalination efficiency of the electrode A is better than that of the electrode B, C. The pore size distribution at 100 microns should be the pores between the activated carbon particles, and it can be found that the pore distribution of the A electrode is more uniform and reasonable than that of the B, C electrode, which is more favorable for the uniform distribution of liquid and increases the utilization rate of electrons and micropores.
The method has the advantages of simple equipment and operation, all processes can be automated, the process can be simplified, and the time and efficiency of electrode preparation can be improved.
Drawings
Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a method for manufacturing an activated carbon electrode according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 shows electrodes prepared in example 1 and example 2 according to the present invention at 2000. mu.S-cm-1The desalting performance in the sodium chloride solution of (1) is shown schematically.
FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of cyclic voltammetry with sweep rate of 1mV/s for three electrodes provided by an embodiment of the present invention in 0.5M NaCl solution.
FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of the impedance of three electrodes provided by the embodiment of the present invention in a 0.5M NaCl solution.
FIG. 5 is a graphical representation of the conductivity versus time curve in a NaCl solution as provided by an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of the electrical desalting cycle performance of three electrodes provided in the embodiment of the invention in a sodium chloride solution.
Fig. 7 is a graphical representation of mercury intrusion data for A, B, C electrodes provided by an embodiment of the invention.
Fig. 8 is a graph of Bet data for an A, B, C electrode provided by an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 9 shows A, B, C electrodes soaked in NaCl solution for one month.
FIG. 10 shows A, B, C resistance values at 1, 2, 3, and 4cm from the electrode surface according to the embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 11 is a comparison of A, B, C electrode bending strengths provided by embodiments of the present invention.
FIG. 12 is a cross-sectional and surface SEM image of an A, B, C electrode provided in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.
Detailed Description
In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention more apparent, the present invention is further described in detail with reference to the following embodiments. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the invention and are not intended to limit the invention.
The following detailed description of the principles of the invention is provided in connection with the accompanying drawings.
The active carbon electrode provided by the embodiment of the invention comprises, by weight, 30-90 parts of 20-300-mesh active carbon, 5-40 parts of a conductive agent, 5-50 parts of clay, 5-80 parts of a carbonizable organic binder and 5-30 parts of deionized water.
As shown in fig. 1, a method for preparing an activated carbon electrode according to an embodiment of the present invention includes the following steps:
s101: uniformly mixing activated carbon, a conductive agent and clay, and then adding a carbonizable organic binder and deionized water, and uniformly mixing to prepare slurry;
s102: uniformly coating the active substance slurry on an electrode substrate, and drying at 60-160 ℃ for 0.5-3 h;
s103: and placing the preliminarily dried electrode in a vacuum-pumping or nitrogen-protected atmosphere furnace, and calcining for 0.5-3 h at 500-1000 ℃ to obtain the coated electrode plate.
The electrode base material is: carbon paper, carbon cloth.
The conductive agent is: one or more of acetylene black, graphite powder, carbon nanotubes, carbon fibers and the like.
The clay is as follows: one or more of active kaolin, diatomite, medical stone, porous alumina and the like.
The carbonizable organic binder is: one or more of modified starch, polytetrafluoroethylene, epoxy resin, phenolic resin and the like.
The application of the principles of the present invention will now be described in further detail with reference to specific embodiments.
Example 1:
an activated carbon electrode with good conductivity and water resistance comprises the following raw materials in parts by weight: 80 parts of 20-300 meshes of active carbon, 5 parts of conductive agent, 5 parts of clay, 5 parts of organic binder capable of being carbonized and 5 parts of deionized water.
A method for preparing an activated carbon electrode comprises the following specific steps:
step one, uniformly mixing the activated carbon, the conductive agent and the clay, and then adding the carbonizable organic binder and deionized water into the mixture to be uniformly mixed to prepare slurry.
And step two, uniformly coating the active substance slurry on an electrode substrate, and drying for 1 hour at 100 ℃.
And step three, placing the primarily dried electrode in an atmosphere furnace which is vacuumized or protected by nitrogen, and calcining for 3 hours at 600 ℃ to obtain the coated electrode plate.
Example 2:
an activated carbon electrode with good conductivity and water resistance comprises the following raw materials in parts by weight: 60 parts of 20-300 meshes of active carbon, 10 parts of conductive agent, 5 parts of clay, 20 parts of carbonizable organic binder and 5 parts of deionized water.
A method for preparing an activated carbon electrode comprises the following specific steps:
step one, uniformly mixing the activated carbon, the conductive agent and the clay, and then adding the carbonizable organic binder and deionized water into the mixture to be uniformly mixed to prepare slurry.
And step two, uniformly coating the active material slurry on an electrode substrate, and drying at 150 ℃ for 0.5 hour.
And step three, placing the primarily dried electrode in a vacuum-pumping or nitrogen-protecting atmosphere furnace, and calcining for 2 hours at 900 ℃ to obtain the coated electrode plate.
Voltage of 1.5V was applied across the electrodes of the activated carbons prepared in examples 1 and 2, respectively, with an adsorption time of 60 minutes and an electrode regeneration time of 30 minutes, and then the cycle was continued. As can be seen from the figure, the two electrodes have good electric adsorption performance, and after the electric adsorption process for 1 hour, the conductivity of the sodium chloride solution is from 2000 mu S cm-1Respectively reduced to 1300 mu S cm-1And 1000. mu.S.cm-1On the other hand, it was calculated from the formula that the electrode prepared in example 1 had an electrodeionization amount of 10mg/g, while the electrode prepared in example 2 had an electrodeionization amount of 14.5 mg/g. The invention adopts cheap raw materials and simple and rapid process to prepare the toolThe activated carbon electrode with high desalting performance is applied to the aspects of sewage treatment, seawater desalination, industrial water softening and the like, greatly reduces the cost of sewage treatment, and has great commercial value.
The effects of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to comparative experiments.
In a comparison test, three different activated carbon electrodes are prepared by respectively using a mixed binder, an organic binder and an inorganic binder and adopting the same preparation process. The three electrodes are named as electrode A, electrode B and electrode C.
Firstly, the bending strength of the three electrodes is compared, and the electrode prepared by adopting the mixed binder has good bending strength and can be bent for 360 degrees without falling of activated carbon particles from the surface of graphite paper; when the electrode adopting the organic binder is bent to 270 degrees, the activated carbon particles on the surface of the graphite paper begin to fall off; however, the electrode using the inorganic binder is slightly bent, and the activated carbon particles may be broken into sheets and fall off from the surface of the graphite paper, which also indicates that the inorganic binder cannot well bond the activated carbon particles and the graphite paper substrate. In order to further verify the superiority of the activated carbon electrode prepared by using the mixed binder, electrochemical analysis was also performed on the three electrodes. From the cyclic voltammogram 3, it can be seen that no redox peak appears in the curve, so it can be concluded that no electron gain-loss and transfer of material occurs on the surfaces of the three pairs of electrodes, only adsorption and desorption of ions, i.e. the capacitance is derived from the electric double layer of coulomb interaction rather than the faraday capacitance. It can also be observed that the area of the cyclic voltammetry curve of the A electrode is larger than that of the B electrode and the C electrode, and the capacitance of the A electrode is larger. On this basis, the impedances of the three electrodes were also analyzed. It can also be seen from the impedance fig. 4 that the a electrode has smaller electrochemical impedance, which indicates that the electron transfer speed on the surface of the a electrode is faster than that of the B electrode and the C electrode, which is of great significance in the aspect of electric desalting performance.
To further verify the salt-removing performance of the A electrode, as shown in FIG. 5, the conductivity was 2000. mu.S-cm-1In the sodium chloride solution of (2), the salt is removed by electro-adsorptionAnd (6) testing. The voltage across the three electrodes was 1.5V and the electrosorption time was 120 minutes. It can be found that the conductivity of the sodium chloride solution of the A electrode is obviously reduced faster than that of the B electrode and the C electrode in the initial adsorption period, and the B electrode and the C electrode are adsorbed and saturated at 100 minutes, and the A electrode can also continue to adsorb. After the sodium chloride solution is desalted by the electrode A, the conductivity is reduced to 850 mu S-cm-1This is much lower than the final conductivities of the B and C electrodes. This shows that the electrode A has a large specific surface area and reasonable pore size distribution, and a large number of effective ion channels are formed in the electrode, so that the adsorption amount of ions is increased while smooth passing of ions is ensured, and the electric desalting performance of the electrode is greatly improved.
To simulate the actual electrodesalting process, three electrodes were tested separately for the electrodesalting cycle process as shown in fig. 6. The salt solution has a conductivity of 2000 μ S cm-1The voltage across the electrodes was 1.5V, the time for electrodesalting adsorption was 60 minutes, and the time for electrode regeneration was 30 minutes. It can be seen from the figure that the a electrode performs much better than the other two electrodes during the electric desalination adsorption process, and the ion release rate is faster than the other two electrodes during the electrode regeneration process. The performance of the desalting process and the electrode regeneration process of the B electrode is poor because the organic binder blocks the pores of the activated carbon, so that the desalting performance is greatly reduced. The C electrode can obviously observe that ions can not be completely released in the electrode regeneration process because the inorganic binder blocks effective channels of the ions, so that the adsorption and the release of the ions are simultaneously hindered, and in the release process, some ions can not be released out to block pores of the activated carbon and further reduce the desalting performance.
As shown in fig. 7, in the comparative experiment, the amount of the activated carbon of A, B, C three electrodes was the same, and the desalting effect of the a electrode was much better than that of the B, C two electrodes, which indicates that the utilization rate of the activated carbon particles of the a electrode is higher than that of the B, C electrode; further improving the electrochemical performance of the activated carbon electrode. And the proportion of the added inorganic binder can be adjusted to adjust the pores on the surface of the activated carbon electrode. As can be seen from the mercury intrusion data chart in the comparative test, the pore size distribution of the electrode A at 45nm is obviously higher than that of the electrode B, C, the pores mainly play a role in capacitive desalination are micropores, the conductivity of the electrode A is far better than that of the electrode B, C, the electron transmission speed is high, and the desalination efficiency of the electrode A is better than that of the electrode B, C. The pore size distribution at 100 microns should be the pores between the activated carbon particles, and it can be found that the pore distribution of the A electrode is more uniform and reasonable than that of the B, C electrode, which is more favorable for the uniform distribution of liquid and increases the utilization rate of electrons and micropores.
From the cross-sectional SEM image of A, B, C electrode, it can be seen that the C electrode active carbon particles using inorganic binder have large pores and are not well bonded with the surface of the current collector; and A, B the electrode active carbon particles are in good contact with the current collector and have good cohesiveness. As can be seen from the surface SEM images of the electrodes, the pore distribution on the surface of the electrode A is more uniform, which is beneficial to uniform distribution and electron transmission of liquid, so that the electric desalting performance of the electrode A is enhanced.
As shown in fig. 8, the Bet data graph of A, B, C electrode was obtained by measuring micropores of activated carbon on A, B, C electrode based on mercury intrusion data, i.e., Bet data. It is obvious from the figure that the micropores of the activated carbon on the three electrodes are mainly distributed at about 1.5nm, while the number of the micropores of the A electrode is far more than that of the micropores of the A electrode B, C, and in the process of capacitance desalination, the micropores mainly play a role in adsorption, so that the capacitance desalination performance of the A electrode is far better than that of the B, C electrode, which is also proved by the actual capacitance desalination process.
As shown in fig. 9, A, B, C the change of the electrode surface after soaking the electrodes in NaCl solution for one month, A, B, C three kinds of electrodes were soaked in NaCl solution for one month to verify the water resistance of the prepared electrodes, and the change of the electrode surface was observed. The graph shows that the surface of the electrode A is not obviously changed after the electrode A is soaked for one month, which indicates that the electrode A has good water resistance and mechanical strength; the theory provided by the above proves that organic bonding can not well bond large particles of the activated carbon, but can well integrate the activated carbon particles and the current collector; the C electrode surface is flaked and falls off from the surface of the current collector, but the activated carbon particles still have good cohesiveness, which proves that the inorganic binder can not well adhere the activated carbon particles and the current collector, but can make the activated carbon large particles have good cohesiveness.
As shown in fig. 10, the resistances of A, B, C at the electrode surfaces 1, 2, 3, and 4cm are much smaller than that of B, C, but the resistances of the three electrode surfaces do not increase linearly with the distance, because the resistance of the current collector is smaller than that of the activated carbon particles, the current will flow from the positive electrode of the power supply to the negative electrode of the power supply through the activated carbon layer, and the actually measured resistance is the resistance of the activated carbon layer, so the resistance of the electrode surface depends only on the thickness of the activated carbon layer and the internal structure. Therefore, the mixed binder is adopted, the conductivity of the activated carbon electrode after high-temperature carbonization is obviously improved, and the utilization rate of current is increased.
As shown in fig. 11, A, B, C electrode bending strength is compared.
As shown in fig. 12, a cross-sectional and surface SEM image of the A, B, C electrode.
In conclusion, the inorganic binder and the organic binder are mixed for use, so that the activated carbon particles and the current collector, and the activated carbon particles have good binding effect, and the mechanical strength and the binding strength of the activated carbon electrode are ensured. After high-temperature calcination, the electrode is fluffy, the specific surface area is increased, the pore size distribution is reasonable, a large number of effective ion channels are formed in the electrode, and ions can smoothly pass through the effective ion channels, so that the desalting performance of the activated carbon electrode is greatly improved. In addition, the raw materials adopted by the invention are cheap and easy to obtain, the processing technology is simple, convenient and quick, and the method has great potential for practical production and great commercial value.
The above description is only for the purpose of illustrating the preferred embodiments of the present invention and is not to be construed as limiting the invention, and any modifications, equivalents and improvements made within the spirit and principle of the present invention are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention.