Feasibility of Producing Electricity, Hydrogen, and Chlorine via Reverse Electrodialysis

Reverse electrodialysis (RED) is a technology to generate electricity from two streams with different salinities. While RED systems have been conventionally used for electricity generation, recent works explored combining RED for production of valuable gases. This work investigates the feasibility of producing hydrogen and chlorine in addition to electricity in an RED stack and identifies potential levers for improvement. A simplified one-dimensional model is adopted to assess the technical and economic feasibility of the process. We notice a strong disparity in typical current densities of RED fed with seawater and river water and that in typical water (or chlor-alkali) electrolysis. This …