A Brief Review on High-Performance Capacitive Deionization Enabled by Intercalation Electrodes

Owing to the advantages of cost-effectiveness, environmental-friendliness and high desalination capacity, capacitive deionization (CDI) has emerged as an advanced desalination technique. Recently, the ions intercalation materials inspired by sodium ion batteries have been widely implemented in CDI due to their exceptional salt removal capacity. They are able to extract sodium ions from the brine through intercalation or redox reactions, instead of electrostatic forces associated with the carbonaceous electrode. As a result, the ions intercalation materials have caught the attention of the CDI research community. In this article, the recent progress in various sodium ion intercalation materials as highly-efficient CDI electrodes is summarized and reviewed. Further, an outlook on the future development of ion intercalation electrodes is proposed.