Confinement and phase engineering boosting 1T phase MoS₂/carbon hybrid for high-performance capacitive deionization

Capacitive deionization (CDI) has attracted significant attention as a water treatment technology owing to its low cost, high efficiency, and eco-friendliness. However, the unsatisfactory desalination performance of traditional electrode materials hinders the development of CDI. Herein, 1T-MoS2/C hybrid microspheres are successfully fabricated through confinement and phase engineering strategies. The confinement effect of porous hollow carbon microspheres reduces the overgrowth and agglomeration of MoS2 nanosheets, which is beneficial for exposing more active sites and enhancing stability. Meanwhile, the 1T phase MoS2 displays high intrinsic conductivity and large interlayer spacing, which is conducive to rapid insertion/extraction of Na+. Consequently, 1T-MoS2/C hybrid becomes a prospect electrode material for CDI, which showcases outstanding desalination capacity (48.1 mg/g at 1.2 V), eminent desalination rate as well as exceptional stability. Moreover, the desalination mechanisms are clarified through various characterizations and density functional theory calculations. This study provides new perspectives on designing high-performance MoS2-based CDI electrode materials.