본 연구에서는 축전식 탈이온 공정(capacitive deionization, CDI)의 성능을 개선하기 위해 poly(2,6-di-methyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (PPO)를 기저물질로 이용하여 코팅이 가능한 음이온교환 이오노머(quaternized PPO, QPPO) 용액을 제조하였다. 제조된 QPPO는 상용 음이온교환막(AMX, Astom Corp., Japan) 대비 우수한 이온전도도 특성을 나타내었으며 전기화학적 특성 또한 동등 수준임을 확인할 수 있었다. 다공성 탄소 전극에 이오노머 용액을 코팅하여 CDI 성능평가를 수행하였으며 그 결과 약 94.9%의 높은 염 제거 효율을 나타내었다. 기존의 CDI와 상용 음이온교환막을 결합한 membraneCDI (MCDI), QPPO가 코팅된 전극을 사용한 coated CDI (CCDI)의 탈염 성능을 비교한 결과 QPPO의 높은 이온선택성 및낮은 이온 전달저항으로 CCDI가 기존의 CDI에 비해 52.1%, MCDI에 비해 18.3% 향상된 높은 염 제거 성능을 나타냄을 확인하였다.
In this study, an anion-exchange ionomer solution was developed by employing poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenyl-ene oxide) (PPO) as the base material for the improvement of the capacitive deionization (CDI) performances. It was found that prepared quaternized PPO (QPPO) exhibited excellent ion conductivity superior to that of a commercial anion-exchange membrane (AMX, Astom Corp., Japan) and also the electrochemical properties were shown to be comparable with each other. The CDI tests were conducted by employing the porous carbon electrode coated with the ionomer solution and the re-sult showed the high salt removal efficiency of about 94.9%. By comparing the desalination efficiencies in conventional CDI, membrane CDI (MCDI) with a commercial anion-exchange membrane, and coated CDI (CCDI) employing the porous carbon electrode coated with QPPO, it was confirmed that CCDI shows the high salt removal performance improved by 52.1% and 18.3% compared with those of conventional CDI and MCDI, respectively.