TY - JOUR
TI - Towards 1 kW power production in a reverse electrodialysis pilot plant with saline waters and concentrated brines
AU - Tedesco, M
AU - Cipollina, A
AU - Tamburini, A
AU - Micale, G
T2 - Journal of Membrane Science
AB - Reverse electrodialysis (RED) is a promising technology to extract energy from salinity gradients, especially in the areas where concentrated brine and saline waters are available as feed streams. A first pilot-scale plant was recently built in Trapani (Italy), and tested with real brackish water and brine from saltworks. The present work focuses on the scale-up of the pilot plant, reaching more than 400 m2 of total membrane area installed and representing the largest operating RED plant so far reported in the literature. With a nominal power capacity of 1 kW, the pilot plant reached almost 700 W of power capacity using artificial brine and brackish water, while a 50% decrease in power output was observed when using real solutions. This reduction was likely due to the presence of non-NaCl ions in relatively large concentration, which negatively affected both the electromotive force and stack resistance. These results provide relevant and unique information for the RED process scale-up, representing the first step for the feasibility assessment of RED technology on large scale.
DA - 2017/01//
PY - 2017
PB - Elsevier Ltd. 
VL - 522
SP - 226
EP - 236
UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376738816307128
DO - 10.1016/j.memsci.2016.09.015
LA - English
KW - Salinity Gradient
KW - Field Data
KW - Lab Data
KW - Modeling
KW - Scale Device
KW - Performance
ER -