Ion-exchange textiles (IETs) suitable for use in continuous electrodeionization (CEDI) stacks were prepared using the ultraviolet (UV)-induced grafting of acrylic acid and sodium styrene sulfonate for cation-exchange textiles, or 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate and vinylbenzyl trimethyl ammonium chloride for anion-exchange textiles, onto nonwoven polypropylene fabric using benzophenone as photoinitiator. Although the ion-exchange capacity (2.2 meq g(-1)) of the prepared strong acid cation-exchange textile was lower than that of IRN77 strong acid cation-exchange resin (4.2 meq g(-1)), the overall rate constant of IET was very high due to its low crosslinking and high specific surface area. There was no significant difference between the two different media in terms of the Co(II) removal rate. Furthermore, the current efficiency for IETs was higher than that of IRN77 cation-exchange resin during a CEDI operation, with efficiencies of 60% and 20%, respectively. The IET also showed the faster exchange kinetics. Therefore, IETs prepared in this study proved to have desirable ion-conducting characteristics within the CEDI systems. Also this study revealed that the primary removal mechanism in CEDI is the transport of ions through a medium and not the ionic capacity of a medium. (C) 2004 Society of Chemical Industry.