Abstract Development of novel desalination technologies is driven by the global need for efficient, sustainable water treatment solutions amid increasing water and energy demands. Zinc–air desalination batteries (ZADBs) offer a dual advantage by both desalinating brackish water and generating energy, positioning them as promising alternatives to traditional methods. This study evaluated a ZADB for brackish water treatment, focusing on its desalination performance under varying salinity, composition, current, and catholyte concentrations. The ZADB setup included a zinc anode, anion and cation exchange membranes, and an air cathode. Results showed a salt rejection rate of 98.5% at 2500 ppm of NaCl solution, which decreases to 59.7% at 7500 ppm, indicating that high salinity challenges the desalination process due to ion interactions. Increasing the current from 1 mA to 2 mA improved salt removal rates, particularly at higher salinities. Testing different catholyte concentrations revealed no adverse effect on the desalination performance, maintaining high salt rejection and stable charge efficiency. Moreover, the results showed that the system can desalinate solutions other than NaCl (i.e., LiCl and Na 2 SO 4 ). Furthermore, the use of oxygen nanobubbles in the catholyte led to an approximate 12% improvement in salt rejection, attributed to the elevated dissolved oxygen concentration (~ 36 ppm) compared to the baseline condition (8.6 ppm). The study highlights the ZADB's potential for treating saline water, with optimized conditions improving energy conversion and salt removal efficiency, supporting its viability for sustainable desalination applications.
Khodadousti et al. (Tue,) studied this question.
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