Simultaneous Generation of Clean Water and Electricity Via Desalination Fuel Cells

Abstract

We will present a nascent technology which desalinates water and produces net electricity simultaneously from a single electrochemical cell, driven by the hydrogen/oxygen redox couple [1]. The cell combines hardware of PEM fuel cells, alkaline fuel cells and electrodialysis cells, and thus we term this device a "desalination fuel cell" [2]. We will describe both the operating principle and lab-scale cell results, as well as our development of the fundamental thermodynamics to predict the maximum available electricity production from our cell during its combined chemical reaction-separation process [2]. Our recent advances will be described, including the development of chloride-tolerant non-platinum group metal ORR catalysts [3], achievement of >95% thermodynamic energy efficiency [4], and establishment of system scaling rules. This technology promises to extend the concept of the hydrogen economy to water purification, and we will discuss the outlook on this technology and potential application areas. References: [1] Suss ME, Zhang Y, Atlas I, Gendel Y, Ruck EB, Presser V. Emerging, hydrogen-driven electrochemical water purification. Electrochemistry Communications. 2022 [2] Atlas I, Khalla SA, Suss ME. Thermodynamic energy efficiency of electrochemical systems performing simultaneous water desalination and electricity generation. Journal of The Electrochemical Society. 2020. [3] Asokan A, Abu-Khalla S, Abdalla S, Suss ME. Chloride-Tolerant, Inexpensive Fe/N/C Catalysts for Desalination Fuel Cell Cathodes. ACS Applied Energy Materials. 2022. [4] Abu Khalla S, Atlas I, Litster S, Suss ME. Desalination Fuel Cells with High Thermodynamic Energy Efficiency. Environmental science & technology. 2021. Figure 1: Schematic of a desalination fuel cell, which utilizes chemical energy to desalinate water and produce electricity simultaneously. The cell is driven by the hydrogen-oxygen redox couple. Figure 1