Energy recovery in pilot scale membrane CDI treatment of brackish waters.

An energy recovery technique using a high-current bi-directional dc-dc converter for membrane capacitive de-ionization (mCDI) of brackish waters is described and it's performance assessed in a pilot-scale prototype. The energy recovery system is shown to reduce the energy consumption of the pilot-scale mCDI unit, powered by photovoltaics and with battery storage, by between 30 and 40%. Use of a stopped flow process also enables water recovery of up to 87%. The contributions to energy consumption in the system are quantified with the insights gained from this analysis enabling the selection of an optimum voltage range for desorption termination that maximizes the daily recovered energy. The experimental results demonstrate that energy usage by the mCDI process of lower than 0.4 kWh/m3 is achievable with almost 40% of the energy supplied by the batteries recovered.