Integration of monopolar and bipolar electrodialysis for valorization of seawater reverse osmosis desalination brines: Production of strong acid and base

Abstract

Water scarcity in the Mediterranean basin has been solved by using seawater desalination reverse osmosis technology (SWD-RO). This technology produces brine which is discharged back into the sea resulting in an environmental impact on marine ecosystems. Under the circular economy approach, the aim of this work is to recover resources from NaCl-rich brine (~60–70g/L), e.g. in the form of NaOH and HCl, by integration of two ion exchange-based membrane technologies and quantify the electrical energy consumption. Electrodialysis (ED) incorporating monovalent selective cation exchange membranes as divalent ions purification and concentration of the NaCl present in the SWD-RO brine, was integrated with bipolar membrane ED (EDBM) to produce NaOH and HCl. Current densities of 0.30–0.40kA/m2 at two temperature ranges simulating different seawater temperature regimes (15–18°C and 22–28°C) were tested and a pure NaCl solution was used as starting concentrate stream. NaCl-rich brines with 100 or 200g NaCl/L were obtained by ED and then introduced in the EDBM stack producing HCl and NaOH up to 2M, depending on the initial concentrations. A minimum energy consumption of 1.7kWh/kg NaOH was calculated when working by EDBM with initial concentrations of 104g NaCl/L and 0.24M HCl and NaOH.