Implementation and design of an electrical characterization system for membrane capacitive deionization units in water treatment, with teaching purpose

Abstract

The desalination of seawater is one of the most established techniques in the world. In the middle of the 20th century using water evaporation systems, later with reverse osmosis membranes and now- adays the possibility of capacitive deionization membranes. Capacitive deionization is an emerging technology that makes it possible to obtain drinking water with an efficiency of 95%. This technology is in the development stage and consists of porous activated carbon electrodes, which have great potential for saving energy in the water desalination process, and which can be used for desalina- tion process, using an innovative technology called capacitive deionization. A prototype has been designed and can operate with constant current charging and discharging. Adequate precision has been achieved, as can be seen in the results obtained. A philosophy of using free software with open- source code has been followed, such as: the Arduino and Processing Programming Editors; as well as the Arduino Nano Board, the analog-to-digital converter and the Adafruit digital-to-analog con- verter. Moreover, a low-cost system has been developed. A robust and versatile system has been designed for water treatment, and a flexible system has been obtained for the specifications estab- lished as it is shown in the results section.