Carbon-based electrode materials are one of the key and indispensable materials in capacitive deionization (CDI)technology with high efficiency and low energy consumption.The potential of petroleum coke-based activated carbon materials as electrode material for CDI was investigated，and the possibility of enhancing the performance of carbon electrodes was demonstrated by coupling with ion-exchange membranes that were decorated on the cathode and anode surfaces.The results showed that for the salted water with a conductivity up to 510 μS·cm-1，the amount of salt removed from the water could be increased by 50%，at the same time，the current efficiency of the composite electrodes with ion-exchange membranes increased by 17%.The recycling performance of the composite electrodes was also greatly improved.It was found that the electrosorption mechanism involved on the electrodes in the CDI technology was an ideal monolayer adsorption process.