Using electrodialysis for regeneration of aqueous lithium chloride solution in liquid desiccant air conditioning systems

This study evaluates the potential of using electrodialysis (ED) technology to regenerate the aqueous lithium chloride (LiCl) solution, a commonly used liquid desiccant in liquid desiccant air conditioning (LDAC) systems. Experiments were performed using an ED system with ten cell pairs of ion-exchange membranes. A range of tests were carried out to examine the effects of the circulation flow rate, supplied current density, solution initial concentration and the concentration difference between the regenerated and spent solutions on the performance of ED for regenerating LiCl liquid desiccant solutions. The results showed that the regeneration capability of the ED stack decreased with the increase of the circulation flow rate. Regeneration performance in terms of the concentration enrichment increased as the supplied current density increased and the solution initial concentration decreased. It is also shown that the concentration difference between the regenerated and spent solutions is critical for the regeneration performance of ED. The ED stack can continuously increase the concentration of the regenerated solution when the concentration difference between the regenerated and spent solutions is below 5.86% (wt/wt), under the supplied current density of 57.1 mA/cm2, circulation flow rate of 100 L/h, and the initial concentrations of the solutions in the regenerated and spent tanks of 28.77% and 23.96% (wt/wt), respectively. The current efficiency of the ED in two hours running for all experiments was in the range of 55.17-73.54%. The results obtained from this study would be useful for the ED regenerator design and system integration.