Activated nanostructured-carbon cloths with a high ratio of surface area to volume are used as electrode for capacitive deionization. The electrochemical properties on capacitive deionization for NaCl solution have been investigated to improve efficiency of capacitive deionization properties from aqueous solution, employing chemical surface-modification by etching in alkaline and acidic solution. The removal efficiency of inorganic salts of activated carbon cloths by chemical modification significantly increased. Specially the carbon cloth surface modified in HNO3 showed an effect of improvement in the CDI efficiency due to not only ion adsorption by an electric double layer, but also electron transfer by Faradaic reaction. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.