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Alkhadra M, Su X, Suss ME, Tian H, Guyes EN, Shocron AN, Conforti KM, de Souza JP, Kim N, Tedesco M, Khoiruddin K, Wenten IG, Santiago JG, Hatton TA, Bazant MZ. Electrochemical Methods for Water Purification, Ion Separations, and Energy Conversion. Chem Rev 2022; 122:13547-13635. [PMID: 35904408 PMCID: PMC9413246 DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemrev.1c00396] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 23.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/05/2023]
Abstract
Agricultural development, extensive industrialization, and rapid growth of the global population have inadvertently been accompanied by environmental pollution. Water pollution is exacerbated by the decreasing ability of traditional treatment methods to comply with tightening environmental standards. This review provides a comprehensive description of the principles and applications of electrochemical methods for water purification, ion separations, and energy conversion. Electrochemical methods have attractive features such as compact size, chemical selectivity, broad applicability, and reduced generation of secondary waste. Perhaps the greatest advantage of electrochemical methods, however, is that they remove contaminants directly from the water, while other technologies extract the water from the contaminants, which enables efficient removal of trace pollutants. The review begins with an overview of conventional electrochemical methods, which drive chemical or physical transformations via Faradaic reactions at electrodes, and proceeds to a detailed examination of the two primary mechanisms by which contaminants are separated in nondestructive electrochemical processes, namely electrokinetics and electrosorption. In these sections, special attention is given to emerging methods, such as shock electrodialysis and Faradaic electrosorption. Given the importance of generating clean, renewable energy, which may sometimes be combined with water purification, the review also discusses inverse methods of electrochemical energy conversion based on reverse electrosorption, electrowetting, and electrokinetic phenomena. The review concludes with a discussion of technology comparisons, remaining challenges, and potential innovations for the field such as process intensification and technoeconomic optimization.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohammad
A. Alkhadra
- Department
of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Xiao Su
- Department
of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana−Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, United States
| | - Matthew E. Suss
- Faculty
of Mechanical Engineering, Technion—Israel
Institute of Technology, Haifa 3200003, Israel,Wolfson
Department of Chemical Engineering, Technion—Israel
Institute of Technology, Haifa 3200003, Israel,Nancy
and Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program, Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3200003, Israel
| | - Huanhuan Tian
- Department
of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Eric N. Guyes
- Faculty
of Mechanical Engineering, Technion—Israel
Institute of Technology, Haifa 3200003, Israel
| | - Amit N. Shocron
- Faculty
of Mechanical Engineering, Technion—Israel
Institute of Technology, Haifa 3200003, Israel
| | - Kameron M. Conforti
- Department
of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - J. Pedro de Souza
- Department
of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Nayeong Kim
- Department
of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana−Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, United States
| | - Michele Tedesco
- European
Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Water Technology, Wetsus, Oostergoweg 9, 8911 MA Leeuwarden, The Netherlands
| | - Khoiruddin Khoiruddin
- Department
of Chemical Engineering, Institut Teknologi
Bandung, Jl. Ganesha no. 10, Bandung, 40132, Indonesia,Research
Center for Nanosciences and Nanotechnology, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Jl. Ganesha no. 10, Bandung 40132, Indonesia
| | - I Gede Wenten
- Department
of Chemical Engineering, Institut Teknologi
Bandung, Jl. Ganesha no. 10, Bandung, 40132, Indonesia,Research
Center for Nanosciences and Nanotechnology, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Jl. Ganesha no. 10, Bandung 40132, Indonesia
| | - Juan G. Santiago
- Department
of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, United States
| | - T. Alan Hatton
- Department
of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Martin Z. Bazant
- Department
of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States,Department
of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States,
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Alkhadra MA, Conforti KM, Gao T, Tian H, Bazant MZ. Continuous Separation of Radionuclides from Contaminated Water by Shock Electrodialysis. Environ Sci Technol 2020; 54:527-536. [PMID: 31793287 DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.9b05380] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
The increasing popularity of nuclear energy necessitates development of new methods to treat water that becomes contaminated with radioactive substances. Because this polluted water comprises several dissolved species (not all of which are radioactive), selective accumulation of the radionuclides is desirable to minimize the volume of nuclear waste and to facilitate its containment or disposal. In this article, we use shock electrodialysis to selectively, continuously, and efficiently remove cobalt and cesium from a feed of dissolved lithium, cobalt, cesium, and boric acid. This formulation models the contaminated water commonly found in light-water reactors and in other nuclear processes. In a three-pass process, a consistent trade-off is observed between the recovery of decontaminated water and the percentage of cobalt removed, which offers flexibility in operating the system. For example, 99.5% of cobalt can be removed with a water recovery of 43%, but up to 66% of the water can be recovered if deionization of cobalt is allowed to drop to 98.3%. In general, the energy consumed during this process (ranging between 1.76 and 4.8 kW h m-3) is low because only charged species are targeted and virtually no energy is expended removing boric acid, the most abundant species in solution.
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Gao T, Mirzadeh M, Bai P, Conforti KM, Bazant MZ. Active control of viscous fingering using electric fields. Nat Commun 2019; 10:4002. [PMID: 31488823 PMCID: PMC6728344 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11939-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/04/2019] [Accepted: 07/15/2019] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Viscous fingering is a widely observed phenomenon, in which finger-like instabilities occur at the interface of two fluids, whenever a less viscous phase displaces a more viscous phase. This instability is notoriously difficult to control, especially for given viscosity ratio and geometry. Here we demonstrate experimentally the active control of viscous fingering of two given liquids, for given geometry and flow rate in a Hele-Shaw cell. The control is realized by taking advantage of electro-osmotic flows along the surfaces confining the fluid, via applying an external electric field. Depending on the direction of electric field, the induced secondary electro-osmotic flows either assist or oppose the hydraulic flow, effectively reducing or increasing the flow resistance, leading to the control of interface stability. The mechanism of apparent “electrokinetic thinning/thickening” is proposed to explain the experimental observations. Theoretical predictions of linear stability are confirmed experimentally for a broad range of immiscible electrolyte displacements. When a viscous fluid is displaced by a less viscous phase between two plates, a finger-like instability occurs. Here the authors demonstrate how applying an external electric field can suppress the fingering instability without the need to alter the fluid flow rate or the gap geometry.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tao Gao
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Mohammad Mirzadeh
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Peng Bai
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.,Department of Energy, Environmental, and Chemical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, 63130, USA
| | - Kameron M Conforti
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Martin Z Bazant
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA. .,Department of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
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