Nitrogenization of Biomass-Derived Porous Carbon Microtubes Promotes Capacitive Deionization Performance

Nitrogenization of porous carbon provides an effective methodology to promote capacitive deionization (CDI) performance. Exploring a new class of nitrogen-doped porous carbons from waste biomass over commercially available activated carbons is of significant interest in CDI. In this contribution, we present the preparation of nitrogen-doped porous carbon microtubes (N-CMTs) by pyrolyzing willow catkins, a naturally abundant biomass with urea as the nitrogen source. Due to the naturally occurring hollow microtube structure and the high nitrogen content, the as-prepared N-CMTs show an enhanced desalination performance compared to undoped samples. A high deionization capacity of 16.78 mg g−1 predicted by Langmuir isotherm and a stable cycling performance over ten cycles are observed. The result advocates the importance and significance of naturally developed architectures and chemistry for practical CDI application. In this contribution, we present the preparation of nitrogen-doped porous carbon microtubes (N-CMTs) by pyrolyzing willow catkins, a naturally abundant biomass with urea as the nitrogen source. Nitrogenization of porous carbon provides an effective methodology to promote capacitive deionization (CDI) performance.