Utilization of bipolar membrane electrodialysis for salt water treatment.

Bipolar ion-exchange membranes, using polystyrene ethylene utylenes polystyrene (PSEBS) with polyvinyl alcohol as the intermediate, were fabricated and evaluated for their potential to remove secondary salts from lab-prepared salt solutions. Experiments were carried out in batch re-circulation mode. The mechanical properties and microscopic images of the membranes were analyzed before, during, and after the electrodialysis process. The performance of the membranes in the stack was evaluated in terms of energy consumption and current efficiency, and found to be 1.07 Wh/mol and 0.67, respectively. Commercially-produced membranes were used as a comparison to the PSEBS-based membranes. In the case of the commercial membrane, polystyrene divinylbenzene, the values for the above parameters were observed to be 2.59 Wh/mol and 0.63, respectively. In addition, other parameters, such as transport number of ions and acid - alkali production, were evaluated for both PSEBS-based and commercially-produced membranes. Results indicated that PSEBS-based membranes exhibited better performance than the commercial membranes.