Poly-p-phenylene as a novel pseudocapacitive anode or cathode material for hybrid capacitive deionization

Hybrid capacitive deionization (HCDI), which consists of one Faradaic and one carbon electrode, has recently developed as a high-efficiency and environmentally friendly water desalination technique. The advancement of HCDI, however, is hampered by a scarcity of high quality Faradaic materials. Here we demonstrated that conducting poly-p-phenylene (PPP) with a coplanar molecular structure of the extended Π-conjugated skeleton can be used as a reversible electrode material to capture either cations (Na+, K+, Ca2+) or anions (Cl−, F−, NO3−, and SO42−) from various salt solutions. This is benefited from its broad potential window and n−/p-doping characteristics. The desalination performance of PPP was evaluated systematically with the constructed HCDI cells in different electrolytes, which can deliver excellent salt adsorption capacity, charge efficiency, and long-term cycling stability. Further, based on complex capacitance analysis, the kinetic features and mechanism for the ion insertion-adsorption processes were further elucidated, which offers both a new perspective for understanding the salt removal performance of PPP and a practical method for investigating other pseudocapacitive intercalation materials. [Display omitted] •PPP as a pseudocapacitive material can be used to capture either cations or anions.•PPP exhibits a well adsorption performance in different solutions.•The high desalination performance of PPP exceeds most of other polymer materials.•We propose a novel analysis method for isolating individual capacitive phenomena.•The time scales of capacitive processes contains important information for ion intercalation.