Architecture and unit design of a capital cost optimized, household electrodialysis desalination device with continuous flow

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, September, 2020

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Varner, Hannah M. (Hannah Martin)
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/143619
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author Varner, Hannah M. (Hannah Martin)
author2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.
author_facet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Varner, Hannah M. (Hannah Martin)
author_sort Varner, Hannah M. (Hannah Martin)
collection MIT
description Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, September, 2020
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spelling mit-1721.1/1436192022-07-10T03:06:29Z Architecture and unit design of a capital cost optimized, household electrodialysis desalination device with continuous flow Varner, Hannah M. (Hannah Martin) Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Mechanical Engineering. Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, September, 2020 Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (pages 89-91). Improved solutions for water desalination are necessary in the urban Indian setting. Currently, a majority of point-of-use (POU) purifiers use reverse osmosis (RO) to desalinate household water. However, RO purifiers waste up to 70% of the feed water when used in the domestic context. Electrodialysis (ED) is a water-efficient alternative means of desalination that preserves >80% of the feed as product water. Though it has been proposed previously and is used in industrial processes, ED has not been successfully implemented for domestic POU desalination in India or globally. This work aims to understand how ED systems can be modified to the POU scale and, critically, how they can be made cost competitive to RO systems. We do this by proposing and then validating a new, direct-flow continuous ED architecture with differential flow rates (and pressures) between the diluate and concentrate channels. This architecture is made possible by a small ED stack, which can withstand a flow channel pressure imbalance. Using numerical system models, a system design was optimized for minimum capital cost, informed by design requirements for a characteristic Indian usage context. A prototype of this system was capable of a 37±6% reduction in feed water salinity from (1500±20 to 940±140 mg/L) at !90% water recovery and incorporated electrodialysis reversal and acid dosing as mechanisms to enhance reliability and prevent mineral scaling. If realized as a commercial POU product, ED has the potential within the Indian market to conserve >200 million liters of water per day if adopted in place of low-recovery RO purifiers among even a small fraction of high-income Indian households. by Hannah M. Varner. S.M. S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering 2022-07-08T15:55:28Z 2022-07-08T15:55:28Z 2020 2020 Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/143619 1241689056 eng MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 91 pages application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Mechanical Engineering.
Varner, Hannah M. (Hannah Martin)
Architecture and unit design of a capital cost optimized, household electrodialysis desalination device with continuous flow
title Architecture and unit design of a capital cost optimized, household electrodialysis desalination device with continuous flow
title_full Architecture and unit design of a capital cost optimized, household electrodialysis desalination device with continuous flow
title_fullStr Architecture and unit design of a capital cost optimized, household electrodialysis desalination device with continuous flow
title_full_unstemmed Architecture and unit design of a capital cost optimized, household electrodialysis desalination device with continuous flow
title_short Architecture and unit design of a capital cost optimized, household electrodialysis desalination device with continuous flow
title_sort architecture and unit design of a capital cost optimized household electrodialysis desalination device with continuous flow
topic Mechanical Engineering.
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/143619
work_keys_str_mv AT varnerhannahmhannahmartin architectureandunitdesignofacapitalcostoptimizedhouseholdelectrodialysisdesalinationdevicewithcontinuousflow