S.J. Metz

Electrical Power from Sea and River Water by Reverse Electrodialysis : A First Step from the Laboratory to a Real Power Plant

Electricity can be produced directly with reverse electrodialysis (RED) from the reversible mixing of two solutions of different salinity, for example, sea and river water. The literature published so far on RED was based on experiments with relatively small stacks with cell dimensions less than 10 × 10 cm(2). For the implementation of the RED technique, it is necessary to know the challenges associated with a larger system. In the present study we show the performance of a scaled-up RED stack, equipped with 50 cells, each measuring 25 × 75 cm(2). A single cell consists of an AEM (anion exchange membrane) and a CEM (cation exchange membrane) and therefore, the total active membrane area in the stack is 18.75 m(2). This is the largest dimension of a reverse electrodialysis stack published so far. By comparing the performance of this stack with a small stack (10 × 10 cm(2), 50 cells) it was found that the key performance parameter to maximal power density is the hydrodynamic design of the stack. The power densities of the different stacks depend on the residence time of the fluids in the stack. For the large stack this was negatively affected by the increased hydrodynamic losses due to the longer flow path. It was also found that the large stack generated more power when the sea and river water were flowing in co-current operation. Co-current flow has other advantages, the local pressure differences between sea and river water compartments are low, hence preventing leakage around the internal manifolds and through pinholes in the membranes. Low pressure differences also enable the use of very thin membranes (with low electrical resistance) as well as very open spacers (with low hydrodynamic losses) in the future. Moreover, we showed that the use of segmented electrodes increase the power output by 11%.

Water vapor and gas transport through a poly(butylene terephthalate) poly(ethylene oxide) block copolymer

In this paper the transport behavior of water vapor and nitrogen in a poly(butylene terephthalate) poly (ethylene oxide) block copolymer is discussed. This polymer has a high solubility for water (300 cm3 (STP)/cm3 polymer at activity 0.9). A new permeation set up has been built to determine the water vapor and nitrogen transport rates from mixed gas experiments at temperatures up to 80°C and 80 bar. The diffusion coefficient of water decreases with activity when determined from sorption and permeation experiments. The water vapor permeability decreases and the nitrogen permeability increases with increasing temperature. This behavior causes the water nitrogen selectivity to decrease 2 orders of magnitude. Their high water transport rates as well as their high selectivity for sour gases make these materials viable potential candidates for new composite membranes.