Abstract: With the increasing shortage of water and energy resources, capacitive desalination(CDI) technology with low energy consumption has attracted plenty of attention recently. However, CDI technology is still in its early age, and is not widely used in industry. Based on the current application progress of CDI technology, this paper first introduces the research progress of electrode materials and device configurations, and points out the challenges faced in the application. Then, the development status and application fields of the existing CDI companies around the world are reviewed, and the application cases in the fields of circulating cooling water and municipal wastewater reuse are analyzed in details. In addition, the problem of concentrated water discharge is further analyzed and discussed. Lastly, the challenges and development trends of CDI technology are forecasted in order to provide theoretical guidance for its practical application in water treatment.