Optimal design of power constrained bipolar membrane electrodialysis over a wide brine range

Johnson Dhanasekaran; Punhasa S. Senanayake; Abdiel Lugo; Pei Xu; W. Shane Walker; Huiyao Wang; Srikanth Allu

doi:10.1016/j.cej.2025.163497

Optimal design of power constrained bipolar membrane electrodialysis over a wide brine range

Johnson Dhanasekaran, Punhasa S. Senanayake, Abdiel Lugo, Pei Xu, W. Shane Walker, Huiyao Wang, Srikanth Allu

Multiscale Materials

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Bipolar membrane electrodialysis enables the in-situ production of high value products (e.g., acid and base) from clean brine, which is essential for a sustainable future. A technoeconomic assessment (TEA) was conducted on extraction of value from brine using the WaterTAP framework to identify optimal cost across a wide design space. In the power constrained regime, increasing supplied salt concentration does not necessarily result in reduced cost or increased NaOH concentration. A detailed analysis elucidates the critical roles of water dissociation, limiting currents, and sodium diffusion play in shaping the landscape of levelized cost. Among these, water splitting predominantly influences the TEA outcomes across most of the optimal design space. Sensitivity analysis further demonstrates that membrane properties controlling water dissociation significantly impact the unit cost. The results indicate that innovations targeting improvements in water disassociation should be prioritised to effectively reduce the levelized cost of product production.

Original language	English
Article number	163497
Journal	Chemical Engineering Journal
Volume	517
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2025.163497
State	Published - Aug 1 2025

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI), funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Industrial Efficiency & Decarbonization Office (IEDO) and was carried out at Oak Ridge National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan). The authors would like to acknowledge Alexander V. Dudchenko for the assistance is data processing and plotting and Kris Villez for providing valuable comments and proofreading the article.

Keywords

Bipolar membrane electrodialysis
Chemicals production
Ion exchange membrane
Process simulator
Techno-economic analysis
Water disassociation

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10.1016/j.cej.2025.163497

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title = "Optimal design of power constrained bipolar membrane electrodialysis over a wide brine range",

abstract = "Bipolar membrane electrodialysis enables the in-situ production of high value products (e.g., acid and base) from clean brine, which is essential for a sustainable future. A technoeconomic assessment (TEA) was conducted on extraction of value from brine using the WaterTAP framework to identify optimal cost across a wide design space. In the power constrained regime, increasing supplied salt concentration does not necessarily result in reduced cost or increased NaOH concentration. A detailed analysis elucidates the critical roles of water dissociation, limiting currents, and sodium diffusion play in shaping the landscape of levelized cost. Among these, water splitting predominantly influences the TEA outcomes across most of the optimal design space. Sensitivity analysis further demonstrates that membrane properties controlling water dissociation significantly impact the unit cost. The results indicate that innovations targeting improvements in water disassociation should be prioritised to effectively reduce the levelized cost of product production.",

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AU - Walker, W. Shane

AU - Wang, Huiyao

AU - Allu, Srikanth

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N2 - Bipolar membrane electrodialysis enables the in-situ production of high value products (e.g., acid and base) from clean brine, which is essential for a sustainable future. A technoeconomic assessment (TEA) was conducted on extraction of value from brine using the WaterTAP framework to identify optimal cost across a wide design space. In the power constrained regime, increasing supplied salt concentration does not necessarily result in reduced cost or increased NaOH concentration. A detailed analysis elucidates the critical roles of water dissociation, limiting currents, and sodium diffusion play in shaping the landscape of levelized cost. Among these, water splitting predominantly influences the TEA outcomes across most of the optimal design space. Sensitivity analysis further demonstrates that membrane properties controlling water dissociation significantly impact the unit cost. The results indicate that innovations targeting improvements in water disassociation should be prioritised to effectively reduce the levelized cost of product production.

AB - Bipolar membrane electrodialysis enables the in-situ production of high value products (e.g., acid and base) from clean brine, which is essential for a sustainable future. A technoeconomic assessment (TEA) was conducted on extraction of value from brine using the WaterTAP framework to identify optimal cost across a wide design space. In the power constrained regime, increasing supplied salt concentration does not necessarily result in reduced cost or increased NaOH concentration. A detailed analysis elucidates the critical roles of water dissociation, limiting currents, and sodium diffusion play in shaping the landscape of levelized cost. Among these, water splitting predominantly influences the TEA outcomes across most of the optimal design space. Sensitivity analysis further demonstrates that membrane properties controlling water dissociation significantly impact the unit cost. The results indicate that innovations targeting improvements in water disassociation should be prioritised to effectively reduce the levelized cost of product production.

KW - Bipolar membrane electrodialysis

KW - Chemicals production

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KW - Techno-economic analysis

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Optimal design of power constrained bipolar membrane electrodialysis over a wide brine range

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