The influence of different factors on the power-generation performance of reverse electrodialysis

Abstract

Reverse electrodialysis (RED) is a nonpolluting energy technology which can convert the salinity gradient energy into electricity. In this paper, the influence of different influencing factors on the power-generation performance is studied experimentally via linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) measurement based on the electrochemical workstation platform. The results show that the increase in the number of cell pairs makes the open circuit voltage and stack resistance raise while the maximum power density of RED stack decreases continuously. The optimal value of maximum power density is obtained when the cell pair number is 5. Regardless of whether the solution concentration ratio is constant or not, increasing the solution concentration will cause the stack resistance to reduce and the power density gradually rises. The highest maximum power density is found at 120–4 g/L. Finally, as the flow rate increases, the open circuit voltage remains unchanged and the stack resistance decreases, so correspondingly the maximum power density increases constantly. When the flow rate is 40 L/h, the RED system has the best power generation performance.