Unlocking energy potential: Decarbonizing water reclamation plants with salinity gradient energy recovery

Climate change, together with the ecological droughts suffered by a large part of the European Union's territory, calls for joint environmental solutions. In this regard, water reclamation is a promising way to alleviate the pressure on existing water resources. However, reuse strategies are penalized by the extra energy consumed in urban wastewater treatment plants (UWWTPs), facilities mainly powered by fossil fuels. The opportunity to integrate renewable sources of energy into the energy-intensive UWWTPs holds great promise towards decarbonization of the sector. In this context, the energy harvested from a Salinity Gradient (SGE) has attracted great interest in the last decade. This work aims at the analysis of opportunity of implementing integrated processes for water reclamation and SGE recovery in the coastal EU UWWTPs. According to the selection criteria, a total of 281 potential sites located across eighteen coastal countries of the EU have been inventoried attending to the current state of the art. The water reclamation potential has been estimated at 3.7 million m3/day. As a consequence, the environmental burdens of the reclamation process could result in the reduction of 1.5·105 t CO2/year. The Mediterranean region, highly affected by hydrological drought, has proved to be a hot spot for water reclamation, with the highest number of plants inventoried in the study and a predicted potential for SGE harvesting of 60 Wh/m3 of reclaimed water. These results highlight a niche of opportunities to encourage water reclamation, avoid water bodies' degradability due to effluent discharge and the further decarbonization of reclamation processes.

Transitioning from electrodialysis to reverse electrodialysis stack design for energy generation from high concentration salinity gradients

In this study, stack design for high concentration gradient reverse electrodialysis operating in recycle is addressed. High concentration gradients introduce complex transport phenomena, which are exacerbated when recycling feeds; a strategy employed to improve system level energy efficiency. This unique challenge indicates that membrane properties and spacer thickness requirements may differ considerably from reverse electrodialysis for lower concentration gradients (e.g. seawater/river water), drawing closer parallels to electrodialysis stack design. Consequently, commercially available electrodialysis and reverse electrodialysis stack design was first compared for power generation from high concentration gradients. Higher gross power densities were identified for the reverse electrodialysis stack, due to the use of thinner membranes characterised by a higher permselectivity, which improved current. However, energy efficiency of the electrodialysis stack was twice that recorded for the reverse electrodialysis stack at low current densities, which was attributed to: (i) an increased residence time provided by the larger intermembrane distance, and (ii) reduced exergy losses of the electrodialysis membranes, which provided comparatively lower water permeance. Further in-depth investigation into membrane properties and spacer thickness identified that membranes characterised by an intermediate water permeability and ohmic resistance provided the highest power density and energy efficiency (Neosepta ACS/CMS), while wider intermembrane distances up to 0.3 mm improved energy efficiency. This study confirms that reverse electrodialysis stacks for high concentration gradients in recycle therefore demand design more comparable to electrodialysis stacks to drive energy efficiency, but when selecting membrane properties, the trade-off with permselectivity must also be considered to ensure economic viability.

Scale-up of reverse electrodialysis for energy generation from high concentration salinity gradients

Whilst reverse electrodialysis (RED) has been extensively characterised for saline gradient energy from seawater/river water (0.5 M/0.02 M), less is known about RED stack design for high concentration salinity gradients (4 M/0.02 M), important to closed loop applications (e.g. thermal-to-electrical, energy storage). This study therefore focuses on the scale-up of RED stacks for high concentration salinity gradients. Higher velocities were required to attain a maximum Open Circuit Voltage (OCV) for 4 M/0.02 M, which gives a measure of the electrochemical potential of the cell. The experimental OCV was also much below the theoretical OCV, due to the greater boundary layer resistance observed, which is distinct from 0.5 M/0.02 M. However, negative net power density (net produced electrical power divided by total membrane area) was demonstrated with 0.5 M/0.02 M for larger stacks using shorter residence times (three stack sizes tested: 10 × 10cm, 10 × 20cm and 10 × 40cm). In contrast, the highest net power density was observed at the shortest residence time for the 4 M/0.02 M concentration gradient, as the increased ionic flux compensated for the pressure drop. Whilst comparable net power densities were determined for the 10 × 10cm and 10 × 40cm stacks using the 4 M/0.02 M concentration gradient, the osmotic and ionic transport mechanisms are distinct. Increasing cell pair number improved maximum current density. This subsequently increased power density, due to the reduction in boundary layer resistance, and may therefore be used to improve thermodynamic efficiency and power density from RED for high concentrations. Although comparable power densities may be achieved for small and large stacks, large stacks maybe preferred for high concentration salinity gradients due to the comparative benefit in thermodynamic efficiency in single pass. The greater current achieved by large stacks may also be complemented by an increase in cell pair number and current density optimisation to increase power density and reduce exergy losses.

Managing power dissipation in closed-loop reverse electrodialysis to maximise energy recovery during thermal-to-electric conversion

Whilst the efficiency of reverse electrodialysis (RED) for thermal-to-electrical conversion has been theoretically demonstrated for low-grade waste heat, the specific configuration and salinity required to manage power generation has been less well described. This study demonstrates that operating RED by recycling feed solutions provides the most suitable configuration for energy recovery from a fixed solution volume, providing a minimum unitary cost for energy production. For a fixed membrane area, recycling feeds achieves energy efficiency seven times higher than single pass (conventional operation), and with an improved power density. However, ionic transport, water flux and concentration polarisation introduce complex temporal effects when concentrated brines are recirculated, that are not ordinarily encountered in single pass systems. Regeneration of the concentration gradient at around 80% energy dissipation was deemed most economically pragmatic, due to the increased resistance to mass transport beyond this threshold. However, this leads to significant exergy destruction that could be improved by interventions to better control ionic build up in the dilute feed. Further improvements to energy efficiency were fostered through optimising current density for each brine concentration independently. Whilst energy efficiency was greatest at lower brine concentrations, the work produced from a fixed volume of feed solution was greatest at higher saline concentrations. Since the thermal-to-electrical conversion proposed is governed by volumetric heat utilisation (distillation to reset the concentration gradient), higher brine concentrations are therefore recommended to improve total system efficiency. Importantly, this study provides new evidence for the configuration and boundary conditions required to realise RED as a practical solution for application to sources of low-grade waste heat in industry.

Hybrid membrane distillation reverse electrodialysis configuration for water and energy recovery from human urine: An opportunity for off-grid decentralised sanitation

The integration of membrane distillation with reverse electrodialysis has been investigated as a sustainable sanitation solution to provide clean water and electrical power from urine and waste heat. Reverse electrodialysis was integrated to provide the partial remixing of the concentrate (urine) and diluate (permeate) produced from the membrane distillation of urine. Broadly comparable power densities to those of a model salt solution (sodium chloride) were determined during evaluation of the individual and combined contribution of the various monovalent and multivalent inorganic and organic salt constituents in urine. Power densities were improved through raising feed-side temperature and increasing concentration in the concentrate, without observation of limiting behaviour imposed by non-ideal salt and water transport. A further unique contribution of this application is the limited volume of salt concentrate available, which demanded brine recycling to maximise energy recovery analogous to a battery, operating in a 'state of charge'. During recycle, around 47% of the Gibbs free energy was recoverable with up to 80% of the energy extractable before the concentration difference between the two solutions was halfway towards equilibrium which implies that energy recovery can be optimised with limited effect on permeate quality. This study has provided the first successful demonstration of an integrated MD-RED system for energy recovery from a limited resource, and evidences that the recovered power is sufficient to operate a range of low current fluid pumping technologies that could help deliver off-grid sanitation and clean water recovery at single household scale.

CO2 saturated water as two-phase flow for fouling control in reverse electrodialysis

When natural feed waters are used in the operation of a reverse electrodialysis (RED) stack, severe fouling on the ion exchange membranes and spacers occurs. Fouling of the RED stack has a strong influence on the gross power density output; which can decrease up to 50%. Moreover, an increase in the pressure loss occurs between the feed water inlet and outlet, increasing the pumping energy and thus decreasing the net power density that can be obtained. In this work, we extensively investigated the use of CO₂ saturated water as two-phase flow cleaning for fouling mitigation in RED using natural feed waters. Experiments were performed in the REDstack research facility located at the Afsluitdijk (the Netherlands) using natural feed waters for a period of 60 days. Two different gas combinations were experimentally investigated, water/air sparging and water/CO₂ (saturated) injection. Air is an inert gas mixture and induces air sparging in the stack. In the case of CO₂, nucleation, i.e. the spontaneous formation of bubbles, occurs at the spacer filaments due to depressurization of CO₂ saturated water, inducing cleaning. Results showed that stacks equipped with CO₂ saturated water can produce an average net power density of 0.18 W/m² under real fouling conditions with minimal pre-treatment and at a low outside temperature of only 8 °C, whereas the stacks equipped with air sparging could only produce an average net power density of 0.04 W/m². Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements showed that the stacks equipped with air sparging increased in stack resistance due to the presence of stagnant bubbles remaining in the stack after every air injection. Furthermore, the introduction of CO₂ gas in the feed water introduces a pH decrease in the system (carbonated solution) adding an additional cleaning effect in the system, thus avoiding the use of environmentally unwanted cleaning chemicals.