Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2019LA116B

A low cost and low energy consumption desalination battery for brackish and seawater treatment

Institute: Louisiana
Year Established: 2019 Start Date: 2019-03-01 End Date: 2020-02-29
Total Federal Funds: $15,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $31,094

Principal Investigators:

Project Summary: The demand for freshwater has increased to critical levels due to economic development and population growth. Desalination of seawater and brackish groundwater has the potential to address this issue. Moreover, water salinity is also an issue for agriculture, especially for areas near coasts due to seawater intrusion. Development of innovative and technologically-efficient desalination technologies with low cost, low energy consumption, and less environmental impacts is highly demanded. Here, we proposed to develop a novel desalination battery with polymer electrode materials (called the PI-PANI desalination battery), which will capture the sodium ions (Na+) in the polyimide (PI) positive electrode and the chloride ions (Cl–) in the polyaniline (PANI) negative electrode through faradaic redox reactions when a small constant voltage (around 1 V) is applied to the cell. It is expected that this system has a high deionization capacity, low energy consumption, low cost, and less environmental impacts.