Special Issue "Electrodialysis Desalination Water Treatment: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities"

Dear Colleagues,

As the global economy and population grows, the world is facing increasing levels of water stress. The populations that are most impacted by global water scarcity tend to live in rural communities, often without reliable or consistent access to electricity. This has led to an increased demand for affordable desalination technologies, particularly those amenable to renewable-powered off-grid operation. Electrodialysis and electrodialysis reversal (ED and EDR, referred to herein as ED) are electromembrane technologies that can desalinate water with significantly lower energy consumption and water wastage than the market-dominant technology, reverse osmosis (RO). This reduced energy consumption reduces the cost of integrating a renewable power system for off-grid applications, and reduces electricity costs for on-grid applications. However, ED only accounts for a small fraction of global desalination capacity, in part due to its relatively high capital cost. To fully realize the potential for ED to meet global fresh water demands, ED systems must be designed and validated that are cost competitive with RO. To have a lasting impact, these systems must also be robust and technically effective while functioning within a sustainable business model and meeting the socioeconomic requirements of the communities they serve. 

We are seeking papers that present research aiming to create and validate on- and off-grid ED systems that can meet or exceed price parity with RO. This might include fundamental science or innovation in areas such as:

• ED stack geometries, 
• Membrane spacer geometries
• Operational modes (e.g., pulsed electric fields)
• Electrodes (e.g., capacitive ED, membrane ED)
• Ion selective membranes
• Overlimiting current operation
• Scale mitigation strategies
• Modeling tools for process optimization
• Modeling tools for system-level optimization (e.g., co-optimized ED and off-grid renewable power systems)
• Integrating ED with other desalination processes, such as RO
• Combining ED with salinity gradient energy harvesting technologies, such as reverse electrodialysis (RED) or pressure retarded osmosis (PRO)
• Other cost reduction strategies

    We also seek papers that test the ability of these ED systems to meet other design requirements necessary to create a sustainable impact in specific locations or communities. We expect the resulting Special Issue to codify the current potential for ED to compete with RO for different water applications (irrigation, drinking, municipal), and to elucidate the recent trends, challenges, and opportunities for its widespread use.

Dr. Susan Amrose

Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• Electrodialysis
• Desalination
• Water Treatment
• Membrane Technologies
• Electrodialysis Reversal
• Reverse Osmosis