Elsevier

Water Research

Volume 163, 15 October 2019, 114856
Water Research

Application of dynamic current density for increased concentration factors and reduced energy consumption for concentrating ammonium by electrodialysis

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2019.114856Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Osmosis limited the concentration factor to 4.5 using a fixed current density (CD).

  • Back-diffusion increased the energy consumption using a fixed CD.

  • Operational run time for 90% NH4+ removal was reduced by 75% using dynamic CD.

  • At dynamic CD osmosis decreased, leading to an increase of the concentration factor of 6.7.

  • At dynamic CD back-diffusion decreased, leading to a stable energy consumption of 5.4 MJ·kg-N−1.

Abstract

Ammonium (NH4+) can be recovered from water for fertiliser production or even energy production purposes. Because NH4+ recovery is more effective at increased concentrations, electrodialysis (ED) can be used to concentrate NH4+ from side streams, such as sludge reject water, and simultaneously achieve high NH4+ removal efficiencies. However, the effect of osmosis and back-diffusion increases when the NH4+ concentration gradient between the diluate and the concentrate stream increases, resulting in a limitation of the concentration factor and an increase in energy consumption for NH4+ removal. In this study, we showed that operation at dynamic current density (DCD) reduced the effect of osmosis and back-diffusion, due to a 75% decrease of the operational run time, compared to operation at a fixed current density (FCD). The concentration factor increased from 4.5 for an FCD to 6.7 for DCD, while the energy consumption of 90% NH4+ removal from synthetic sludge reject water at DCD remained stable at 5.4 MJ·kg-N−1.

Keywords

Electrodialysis
Ammonium
Current efficiency
Back-diffusion
Osmosis
Electro-osmosis

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