Water Desalination with Wires

We show the significant potential of water desalination using a novel capacitive wire-based technology in which anode/cathode wire pairs are constructed from coating a thin porous carbon electrode layer on top of electrically conducting rods (or wires). By alternately dipping an array of electrode pairs in freshwater with and in brine without an applied cell voltage, we create an ion adsorption/desorption cycle. We show experimentally how in six subsequent cycles we can reduce the salinity of 20 mM feed (brackish) water by a factor of 3, while application of a cation exchange membrane on the cathode wires makes the desalination factor increase to 4. Theoretical modeling rationalizes the experimental findings, and predicts that system performance can be significantly enhanced by material modifications. To treat large volumes of water, multiple stacks of wire pairs can be used simultaneously in a "merry-go-round" operational mode.

Direct power production from a water salinity difference in a membrane-modified supercapacitor flow cell

The entropy increase of mixing two solutions of different salt concentrations can be harnessed to generate electrical energy. Worldwide, the potential of this resource, the controlled mixing of river and seawater, is enormous, but existing conversion technologies are still complex and expensive. Here we present a small-scale device that directly generates electrical power from the sequential flow of fresh and saline water, without the need for auxiliary processes or converters. The device consists of a sandwich of porous "supercapacitor" electrodes, ion-exchange membranes, and a spacer and can be further miniaturized or scaled-out. Our results demonstrate that alternating the flow of saline and fresh water through a capacitive cell allows direct autogeneration of voltage and current and consequently leads to power generation. Theoretical calculations aid in providing directions for further optimization of the properties of membranes and electrodes.