Search results for "ELECTRODIALYSIS"
showing 10 items of 139 documents
REAPOWER – USE OF DESALINATION BRINE FOR POWER PRODUCTION THROUGH REVERSE ELECTRODIALYSIS
2015
Salinity gradient power (SGP) represents a viable renewable energy source associated with the mixing of two solutions of different salinities. Reverse electrodialysis (SGP-RE or RED) is a promising technology to exploit this energy source and directly generate electricity. However, although the principle of this technology is well known since several years, further R&D efforts are still necessary in order to explore the real potential of the SGP-RE process. With this regard, the aim of the REAPower project ( [GRAPHICS] ) is the development of an innovative system for power production by SGP-RE process, using sea (or brackish) water as a diluted solution and brine as a concentrate. The use o…
Investigation of Reverse ElectroDialysis Units by Multi-Physical Modelling
2016
Reverse electrodialysis (RED) is an electrochemical membrane process that converts the salinity gradient energy between two solutions into electric current, by using ion exchange membranes. A novel multi-physical approach for RED modelling is proposed. 2-D simulations of one cell pair with tertiary current distribution (Nernst–Plank equation and local electroneutrality) were performed. Moreover, the Donnan exclusion theory was implemented for simulating double layer phenomena. Transport phenomena and electrochemical behavior were well described. The influence of membrane/channel configuration, dilute concentration and feeds velocity on the process performance was assessed. For a dilute conc…
Flow and mass transfer in spacer-filled channels for reverse electrodialysis: a CFD parametrical study
2016
Abstract In reverse electrodialysis (RED) concentration polarization phenomena and pressure drop affect strongly the power output obtainable; therefore the channel geometry has a crucial impact on the system optimization. Both overlapped and woven spacers are commonly commercialised and adopted for RED experiments; the latter exhibit some potential advantages, such as better mixing and lower shadow effect, but they have been poorly investigated in the literature so far. In this work, computational fluid dynamics was used to predict fluid flow and mass transfer in spacer-filled channels for RED applications. A parametric analysis for different spacer geometries was carried out: woven (w) and…
CFD analysis of the fluid flow behavior in a reverse electrodialysis stack
2012
Salinity Gradient Power by Reverse Electrodialysis (SGP-RE) technology allows the production of electricity from the different chemical potentials of two differently concentrated salty solutions flowing in alternate channels suitably separated by selective ion exchange membranes. In SGP-RE, as well as in conventional ElectroDialysis (ED) technology, the process performance dramatically depends on the stack geometry and the internal fluid dynamics conditions: optimizing the system geometry in order to guarantee lower pressure drops (DP) and uniform flow rates distribution within the channels is a topic of primary importance. Although literature studies on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) a…
Reverse electrodialysis with NH4HCO3-water systems for heat-to-power conversion
2017
Abstract A Reverse ElectroDialysis Heat Engine (REDHE) system operating with “thermolytic” ammonium hydrogen-carbonate (NH4HCO3) aqueous solutions as working fluids is studied. The engine is constituted by (i) a RED unit to produce electric power by mixing the solutions at different salinity and (ii) a thermally-driven regeneration unit including a stripping and an absorption column to restore the initial salinity gradient thus closing the cycle. In the present work only the RED unit and the stripping column are taken into account. In particular, a simplified integrated process model for the whole cycle was developed: it consists of (i) a lumped parameter model for the RED unit validated wi…
Water desalination by capacitive electrodialysis: Experiments and modelling
2020
Abstract Electrodialysis-related technologies keep spreading in multiple fields, among which water desalination still plays a major role. A new technology that has not yet been thoroughly investigated is capacitive electrodialysis (CED), which couples the standard ED with capacitive electrodes. CED has a number of advantages such as removal of toxic products and system simplification. Little mention is made of this technology in the literature and, to the best of our knowledge, no modelling works have ever been presented. In this work, the CED process has been studied through experiments and modelling. A CED model is presented for the first time. With a simple calibration based on macroscop…
Bipolar membrane reverse electrodialysis for the sustainable recovery of energy from pH gradients of industrial wastewater: Performance prediction by…
2021
Abstract The theoretical energy density extractable from acidic and alkaline solutions is higher than 20 kWh m−3 of single solution when mixing 1 M concentrated streams. Therefore, acidic and alkaline industrial wastewater have a huge potential for the recovery of energy. To this purpose, bipolar membrane reverse electrodialysis (BMRED) is an interesting, yet poorly studied technology for the conversion of the mixing entropy of solutions at different pH into electricity. Although it shows promising performance, only few works have been presented in the literature so far, and no comprehensive models have been developed yet. This work presents a mathematical multi-scale model based on a semi-…
Pressure drop in woven-spacer-filled channels for reverse electrodialysis: CFD prediction and experimental validation
2015
Reverse electrodialysis (RED) is a promising technology for electric power generation by the chemical potential difference of two salt solutions within a stack equipped by selective ionexchange membranes (salinity gradient energy). Mechanical energy is required for pumping the feed solutions, which can reduce dramatically the net power output. In this work Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of spacer-filled channels for RED were carried out in parallel with an experimental campaign focused on the collection of data for model validation.
CFD prediction of scalar transport in thin channels for reverse electrodialysis
2014
Reverse ElectroDialysis (RED) is a very promising technology allowing the electrochemical potential difference of a salinity gradient to be directly converted into electric energy. The fluid dynamics optimization of the thin channels used in RED is still an open problem. The present preliminary work focuses on the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of the flow and concentration fields in these channels. In particular three different configurations were investigated: a channel unprovided with a spacer (empty channel) and two channels filled with spacers, one made of overlapped filaments the other of woven filaments. The transport of two passive scalars, representative of the ions …
Reverse Electrodialysis: Applications to Different Case Studies
2018
Salinity gradient is a non-conventional renewable energy form which is widely available worldwide. Reverse Electrodialysis is a promising and innovative technology able to convert directly this chemical renewable energy into electricity. This paper presents a number of different scenarios where salinity gradients are naturally available or they result from industrial/urban activities. A sophisticated model accounting for all the main phenomena (including all the detrimental ones) occurring within a Reverse Electrodialysis unit has been purposely developed. The model is used to calculate how much electric energy can be harvested from the above-mentioned salinity gradients.