Acid and Base Production through Electrodialysis with Bipolar Membranes at Semi-Industrial Scale: Study of Multi-Ionic Transport

Electrodialysis with Bipolar Membranes (EDBM) has recently attracted considerable interest in advancing the production of acid and base solutions from waste saline streams utilizing water and electricity. Although multiple studies on EDBM have been conducted at the laboratory scale, there is a lack of knowledge on its application at larger scales and in real-world environments. This work aimed at investigating energetic performance and ion transport in a semi-industrial EDBM unit. This work produced promising results for the achieved Current Efficiency (CE), which was approximately 89%, and the Specific Energy Consumption (SEC), which was 1.25 kWh kg-1 NaOH at the target concentration of 0.5 mol L-1 of NaOH. Moreover, the alkaline solution reached a high purity of 97% in OH- and 95% in Na+ , thus demonstrating the effectiveness of EDBM in real-world applications, particularly for the in-situ production of acid and alkaline solutions.