Development of a Computational Tool for Simplifying Engineering Tradeoff Analysis for the Design of Cost-Optimized, Time-Variant, Electrodialysis Reversal Desalination Systems

Abstract

This study presents an analytical tool for characterizing a wide swath of the designspace for time-variant electrodialysis reversal brackish water desalination (TEDR) while avoiding the computation time oft required by mechanistic models of electrodialysis reversal (EDR) and time-variant processes. In place of explicit computation, this paper proposes a simplifying assumptions to simulate desalination power and production rate of a TEDR process without explicit computation, enabling rapid year-long simulation and system optimization. The output of the model is compared to experimental data from a pilot TEDR system and found to have good agreement between desalination power and production rate. Disagreement between the modeled and experimental pressure losses suggesting additional losses in the experiment which may be accounted for in future work. Two case studies, one case for potable water in the American Southwest and another case for irrigation water in the Middle-East and North Africa (MENA) region, compare the results from 54 optimized systems. The results illustrate the complexity of system design and selection, elucidating tradeoffs between different models of electrodialysis (EDR) stacks, operating modes, and system configurations. The output of this model will enable system designers to confidently design and implement cost-effective TEDR systems to combat rising global freshwater scarcity.