A comprehensive review through few decades of capacitive deionization (CDI) ever since discovery of Carbon aerogel, including a brief theory and factors influencing along with detailed focus on various electrode materials explored till now is done. The importance of suitable pore structure, high surface area, good wettability, high conductivity and quantitatively adsorb ionic components are discussed for optimal desalination performance. Specifically, porous carbon bassed materials are extensively explored as electrode materials in CDI setup, attributable to their availability, low cost and stability. This review mainly discusses the current state of the art in carbon based materials for enhanced desalination performance. Also, in this review, various carbon-based composite electrode materials, including porous carbon, porous carbon–metal oxide, carbon–polymer and carbon–polymer–metal oxide nanocomposites, are systematically investigated. Moreover, a brief outlook on the challenges and new research directions in the CDI area is also presented for researchers toward designing the high performance carbon based CDI device.

自发现碳气凝胶以来，经过几十年的电容性去离子（CDI）的全面审查，包括简要的理论和影响因素以及对目前探索的各种电极材料的详细关注。为了获得最佳的脱盐性能，讨论了合适的孔结构，高表面积，良好的润湿性，高电导率和定量吸附离子组分的重要性。具体而言，由于多孔碳黑材料的可用性，低成本和稳定性，它们在CDI装置中被广泛地用作电极材料。这篇综述主要讨论了碳基材料用于增强脱盐性能的现有技术。另外，在这篇综述中，各种碳基复合电极材料，包括多孔碳，多孔碳金属氧化物，对碳聚合物和碳聚合物金属氧化物纳米复合材料进行了系统的研究。此外，还为研究人员设计高性能碳基CDI设备提供了有关CDI领域面临的挑战和新研究方向的简要介绍。