While the activated carbon (AC) electrodes applied in the field of capacitive deionization (CDI) are mostly prepared by slurry-coating methods, they have long been suffering from the unideal electron transfer rates and exfoliation during long-term operation. Herein, we report an AC electrode modification method involving carbonizing less-conductive binders and in-situ grafting of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on entire AC electrodes via a one-step vacuum chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. The in-situ grafted CNTs showed a much more homogeneous distribution in AC electrodes, which functioned as conductive glue bridging the AC granules and intimately formed a solid and highly conductive carbon framework. The as-prepared AC electrode with grafted CNTs had a superior salt adsorption capacity of 15.6 mg NaCl g^-1 with prominent long-term stability and increased current efficiency (by 70%) compared with traditional AC electrodes. The boosted CDI performance should be ascribed to the unique structure and electrical properties of the electrode. This work provides an efficient and facile alternative to preparing tuned AC electrodes for viable water treatment technologies, which is of great potential to be applied in many attractive fields such as catalysis, energy conversion and storage.

尽管在电容性去离子（CDI）领域中应用的活性炭（AC）电极主要是通过浆料涂覆方法制备的，但长期以来，它们一直遭受着不理想的电子传输速率和剥落的困扰。本文中，我们报告了一种交流电极改性方法，该方法涉及碳化低导电性粘合剂并通过一步真空化学气相沉积（CVD）工艺在整个交流电极上原位接枝碳纳米管（CNT）。在原位接枝的CNT在AC电极中显示出更均匀的分布，起导电胶的作用，桥接了AC颗粒，并紧密地形成了固态且高导电性的碳骨架。与传统的AC电极相比，所制备的带有接枝CNT的AC电极具有15.6 mg NaCl g ^-1的优异盐吸附能力，具有显着的长期稳定性，并提高了电流效率（提高了70％）。CDI性能的提高应归因于电极的独特结构和电性能。这项工作为制备用于可行的水处理技术的调谐交流电极提供了一种有效而简便的替代方法，这在许多有吸引力的领域（例如催化，能量转换和存储）中具有巨大的潜力。