PFI-TT: Prototype Batteries Enabling Energy Efficient Seawater Desalination

这一创新技术转化伙伴关系(PFI-TT)项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是建造一种能够实现高能效淡水生产的海水淡化电池原型。人口的稳定增长和工业的快速发展导致了对农业、能源和人类消费用水的更大需求。因此，必须开发新的海水淡化方法，以解决现有技术的局限性，增加全球获得负担得起的淡水的机会。与传统电池一样，海水淡化电池在充电和放电过程中储存和释放能量，但在海水淡化电池中，这些过程与盐离子的储存和释放相结合，特别是钠(Na+)和氯(Cl-)离子。由于充电过程中消耗的能量在排放过程中得到回收，与传统的海水淡化方法如热蒸馏和反渗透相比，海水淡化所需的净能量大大减少。海水淡化电池技术的成功技术转化可能会对增加具有成本效益的全球淡水饮用水产量产生重大影响，这反过来将产生巨大的社会影响。该项目将建造一个海水淡化电池原型，其容量是目前概念验证电池的18,000倍。增加电极尺寸会对各个电极的容量和循环能力以及海水淡化所需的净能量产生不利影响。因此，概念验证单元的成功扩大是减少对拟议技术商业可行性的不确定性的关键一步。一旦拟议的原型单元成功建造，它将使多个模块的组装能够进行任何规模的海水淡化。拟议的技术将能够进行准确的技术经济计算，从而确定设备的建造和运营成本；能够评估最适合市场的产品，并建立一条可行的进入市场的途径。此外，该样机还可用于模拟实际条件进行海水淡化实验，在1个循环内可去除1 L海水中~100%的Na+和~33%的Cl-。这将使团队能够更有效地接触潜在的商业化、行业和政府/社区合作伙伴，以实现成功的技术翻译。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is to construct a prototype desalination battery that can enable energy efficient freshwater production. Steady growth in the human population and rapid industrial development have led to greater demands for water production for agriculture, energy generation, and human consumption. Thus, it is imperative to develop new desalination methods that can address the limitations of existing technologies and to increase global access to affordable freshwater. Like conventional batteries, the desalination battery stores and releases energy during the charging and discharging processes but, in the desalination battery, these processes are coupled with the storage and release of salt ions, specifically sodium (Na+) and chloride (Cl-) ions. As the energy consumed during the charging process is recovered during the discharging process, the net energy required for desalination is drastically reduced compared with conventional desalination methods such as thermal distillation and reverse osmosis. Successful technology translation of desalination battery technology may have a significant impact on increasing the cost-effective, global freshwater production of potable water, which in turn, will have an enormous societal impact. This project is to build a prototype desalination battery with a capacity 18,000 times larger than that of the current proof-of-concept cell. Increasing the electrode size can adversely affect the individual electrode capacities and cyclabilities as well as the net energy required for desalination. Thus, the successful scale-up of the proof-of-concept cell is a vital step to mitigate uncertainty about the commercial viability of the proposed technology. Once the proposed prototype cell is successfully built, it will enable the assembly of multiple modules to perform desalination at any scale. The proposed technology will enable the performance of accurate technoeconomic calculations and, thus, determine the cost of constructing and operating the device; enable the evaluation of the best product-market fit, and establish a viable path-to-market. Furthermore, the prototype cell can be used to demonstrate desalination at a practical level mimicking real-world conditions with the capacity to remove ~100% of Na+ and ~33% of Cl- present in 1 L of seawater in 1 cycle. This will allow the team to engage potential commercialization, industry, and government/community partners more effectively for successful technology translation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.