Nitrogen-doped porous carbons with high surface area for capacitive deionization

Heteroatom-doped porous carbons have become a hot research topic because of their excellent physicochemical properties and wide applications. The efficient and simple production of these materials is of great practical and scientific significance. Herein, nitrogen-doped porous carbons have been prepared by means of in-situ polymerization of pyrrole monomer and subsequent carbon dioxide activation. It is found that the preparation processes of polypyrrole polymers play an important role in fabricating high-quality porous carbons. The effect of preparation processes (changes in oxidants during the polymerization of pyrrole monomer) on the morphology, structure, and capacitive deionization performance of porous carbons has been studied systematically. The porous carbons with high specific surface area (1610 m(2) g(-1)) exhibit good electrochemical behaviors and capacitive deionization performance. The capacitive deionization results demonstrate that the as-prepared nitrogen-doped porous carbons have a high electrosorption capacity of 13.5 mg g(-1) and excellent regeneration performance in 500 mg L-1 NaCl solution. These results demonstrate that the resultant porous carbons are promising electrode materials for capacitive deionization application.