Pure water and energy production through an integrated electrochemical process

Abstract

In this study, an electrochemical integrated process was developed that integrates a three-pass capacitive deionization (CDI) with capacitive donnan potential (CDP) for water and energy production. Energy required to operate the desalination process CDI was partially fulfilled through the use of CDP process, which in turn reduced the use of fossil fuel energy sources and the CDI brine disposal. Electrochemical process integration with a novel three-pass desorption method increased the water recovery and energy production. Results indicated that almost 95.7% water desalinated and salinity power gradient were produced through the provided design methodology. Performance evaluation graphs revealed that the concentration gain ratio and water recovery were increased up to 20 and 96%, respectively, with the increase in desorption current to 15 A. In addition, 1.4 kJ L-1 energy consumption for water production without process integration was reduced to 0.35 kJ L-1 through the implementation of the proposed system.