REDAEM: Anion-Exchange Membranes for Reverse Electrodialysis

政府对减排的承诺(2008年《气候变化法》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要求采用新的方法，利用可再生能源高效生产非间歇性电力，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。到目前为止，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(盐度)的水混合在电化学红细胞堆内(可能涉及工业废水)时，就会产生电力。最近对全球盐度梯度电力(SGP)潜力的保守评估表明，全球每年可从河口提取625太瓦时的电力(占全球电力消费的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专注于高性能AEMS的开发及其在红细胞(包括那些供应真实世界、非无菌水的红细胞)中的应用。这些将与商业基准AEMS进行比较。该项目将侧重于AEMS，因为CEMS(用于RED应用)是作为以前EPSRC赠款[EP/I004882/1]的一部分开发的；与AEMS相比，可用于CEMS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。利用电子束辐射接枝技术将合成多种AEMS。我们还将探索在移植阶段使用声化学，包括结合使用和不使用电子束。红细胞性能数据也将与单离子传输数据(实验和建模)以及红细胞工程配置建模的数据进行比较。为了估计红色在未来英国能源组合中的现实潜力，对红色堆栈的准确建模至关重要。建模活动将进一步扩大，以考虑到这一进程在对联合王国能源需求的潜在贡献方面的实际可扩展性。将淡水和盐水废流(如工业废流)的可获得性和位置的数据与红色系统的准确模型相结合，将产生不同地点技术潜力的精确地图。然后，这项活动将根据可用的水流确定该过程的潜在整合：即，一旦您知道哪里有淡水(以及有多少)，您就可以计算出您实际可以生产多少电力。此外，当另一种(例如工业)含盐废流靠近淡水水体时，这就避免了使用海水时的限制(就海岸位置和盐度梯度的大小而言)。出于成本效益，该项目将充分利用从以前的EPSRC和欧盟相关项目购买/建立的膜表征和红细胞检测设备。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)将包括DOI定位器，以促进对项目(非知识产权保护)原始数据的开放访问。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更多联系。

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.