REDAEM: Anion-Exchange Membranes for Reverse Electrodialysis

政府承诺减少排放（2008年气候变化法案和现在的2017年清洁增长战略）以及由此产生的雄心勃勃的可再生能源生产目标需要新的方法来有效地生产可再生能源的非间歇性电力，以弥补英国各地化石燃料发电厂的关闭。反向电渗析（RED）是一种“蓝色”非间歇性能源技术，涉及盐度梯度能源，对英国未来的可再生能源组合具有重要意义。迄今为止，RED相对被忽视，因此，迫切需要基于创新材料对其潜力进行系统评估。当不同盐度（咸度）的沃茨在电化学RED电池堆（可能涉及工业废水流）内混合时产生电力。最近对全球盐度梯度发电（SGP）潜力的保守评估表明，全球河口每年实际可提取625 TWh的电力（占全球电力消耗的3%）。RED电池包含多对阴离子交换膜（AEM）和阳离子交换膜（CEM）。该项目的材料开发方面将侧重于开发高性能AEM及其在RED电池中的应用（包括那些提供真实世界的非无菌沃茨）。这些将与商业基准AEM进行比较。该项目将重点关注AEM，因为CEM（用于RED应用）是作为先前EPSRC资助的一部分开发的[EP/I 004882/1];与AEM相比，CEM可用的化学物质的多样性也较少，这就是为什么后者需要更专门的研究项目。将使用电子束辐射接枝技术合成各种各样的AEM。我们还将探索在接枝阶段使用声化学，结合和不使用电子束。RED电池性能数据也将与单离子传输数据（实验和建模）以及RED电池工程配置建模数据进行比较。为了估计RED在未来英国能源结构中的现实潜力，RED堆栈的准确建模至关重要。模拟活动将进一步扩大，以考虑到该过程在对英国能源需求的潜在贡献方面的真实的可扩展性。将关于淡水和含盐废水流（例如工业废水流）的可用性和位置的数据与RED系统的精确模型相结合，将产生不同地点技术潜力的精确地图。这项活动将导致根据可用的水流识别该过程的潜在整合：即一旦你知道你在哪里有淡水（以及有多少），你就可以计算出你实际上可以生产多少电力。此外，当替代（例如工业）含盐废水流位于淡水水体附近时，这避免了使用海水时的限制（就沿海位置和盐度梯度的大小而言）。为了成本效益，该项目将充分利用膜表征和RED细胞测试设备，这些设备是使用先前相关EPSRC和欧盟项目的资金购买/建立的。为了最大限度地提高透明度，所有由此产生的开放获取出版物（CC-BY）都将包括DOI定位器，以促进对项目（不受IP保护）原始数据的开放获取。该项目将用于建立新的英国内部和英国-荷兰研究合作，这将导致与其他英国和欧盟网络的额外联系。

The government commitment to reduce emissions (Climate Change Act 2008 and now the Clean Growth Strategy 2017) and the resulting ambitious targets for renewable energy production requires novel approaches towards efficient production of non-intermittent electricity from renewable sources that can compensate for the closure of fossil fuel power plants around the UK. Reverse electrodialysis (RED) is a "blue" non-intermittent energy technology involving salinity gradient energy, with importance to the UK's future renewable energy mix. RED has been relatively neglected to date, hence, a systematic evaluation of its potential based on innovative materials is urgently needed. Electricity is generated when waters of different salinities (saltiness) are mixed inside an electrochemical RED cell stack (can involve industrial waste streams). A recent conservative assessment of global salinity gradient power (SGP) potential indicates that 625 TWh per year of electricity is practically extractable from river mouths globally (3% of global electricity consumption).RED cells contain multiple pairs of anion-exchange membranes (AEM) and cation-exchange membranes (CEM). The materials development aspect of this project will focus on the development of high performance AEMs and their application in RED cells (including those supplied with real-world, non-sterile waters). These will be compared to commercial benchmark AEMs. The project will focus on AEMs because CEMs (intended for RED application) were developed as part of a previous EPSRC grant [EP/I004882/1]; there is also less diversity of chemistries available for CEMs, compared to AEMs, which is why the latter requires a more dedicated research project. A wide range of AEMs will be synthesised using the electron-beam radiation-grafting technique. We will also explore the use of sonochemistry during the grafting stage, both in combination with and without the use of the electron-beam.The RED cell performance data will also be compared to single ion-transport data (experimental and modelling) as well as data from modelling of RED cell engineering configurations. Accurate modelling of the RED stack is crucial in order to estimate the realistic potential of RED in a future UK energy mix. The modelling activities will be further extended to take into consideration the real scalability of the process in terms of potential contribution to the UK energy demand. The integration of data on the availability and locations of fresh water and saline waste streams (e.g. waste streams from industry) with the accurate model of the RED system will produce a precise map of the technology potential at different sites. This activity will then lead to the identification of potential integrations of the process according to the available streams: i.e. once you know where you have fresh water (and how much) you can calculate how much electricity you can actually produce. Furthermore, when an alternative (e.g. industrial) saline waste stream is located close to a fresh water body, this avoids the limitations when using seawater (in terms of coastal location and the magnitude of the salinity gradient).For cost effectiveness, this project will fully utilise membrane characterisation and RED cell testing equipment that have been purchased/established using funds from prior related EPSRC and EU projects. For maximum transparency, all resulting open access publications (CC-BY) will include DOI locators to facilitate open access to the project's (non-IP-protected) raw data. The project will be used to establish new intra-UK and UK-Dutch research collaborations that should lead to additional links to other UK and EU networks.