Kinetics and thermodynamics study for electrosorption of NaCl onto carbon nanotubes and carbon nanofibers electrodes

The carbon nanotubes and carbon nanofibers composite films (CNTs–CNFs) were fabricated by chemical vapor deposition. The electrosorption performance of CNTs–CNFs films at different solution temperatures was studied. It is found that the salt removal decreases from 45.4% to 33% due to hydrophobic–hydrophilic transition taking place on the surface of CNTs–CNFs films, when solution temperature ranges from 281 to 295 K. The electrosorption isotherm investigation shows Langmuir isotherm can better describe experimental data. Meanwhile, the kinetics and thermodynamics analyses indicate that the electrosorption of NaCl onto CNTs–CNFs electrodes follows first-order kinetics model and is driven by a physisorption process.