Electrocatalytic fuel cell desalination for continuous energy and freshwater generation

• DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrp.2021.100416
• Publication Date: 2021-04-26T14:46:17Z
• Authors: Yuan Zhang; Lei Wang; Volker Presser
• Keywords: Geothermal desalination

Advanced hydrogen technologies contribute essentially to the decarbonization of our industrialized world. Large-scale production would benefit from using abundantly available water reservoir planet's oceans. Current seawater-desalination suffer high energy consumption, cost, or low performance. Here, we report technology for desalination at seawater molarity, based on a polymer ion-exchange membrane fuel cell. By continuously supplying and oxygen cell, 160-mM concentration decrease an initial value 600 mM is accomplished within 40 h 55-mL reservoir. This device's rate in NaCl substitute ocean are 18 g/m2/h 16 g/m2/h, respectively. In addition, by removing 1 g NaCl, 67 mWh electric generated. proof-of-concept work shows application potential sustainable fuel-cell (FCD) as carrier.