Assisted reverse electrodialysis: a novel technique to decrease reverse osmosis energy demand

Assisted reverse electrodialysis (ARED) was introduced as a pre-desalination technique for seawater reverse osmosis (RO) for drinking water production. ARED is comparable to an additional applied pressure along the osmotic pressure in pressure assisted osmosis; a small voltage is applied in the same direction as the open cell voltage to increase the desalination speed compared to reverse electrodialysis (RED). This decreases the required membrane area. The concentration of the dilute compartment increases significantly during ARED operation due to the increased speed of desalination. This results in an overall decrease in total cell resistance. Although the energy demand for ARED is higher than for RED, the ARED-RO process still achieves a decrease in overall energy requirements at higher RO recoveries when compared to stand-alone RO. However, ion-exchange membrane prices will have to come down to 1-10 €/m² for the ARED-RO hybrid to become economically viable at current energy prices