Seawater, ground water, desalination brines, and produced water all contain useful minerals. Our group is interested in technology to recover salts, metals, and industrial chemicals. We have explored selective electrodialysis, direct electrosynthesis, bipolar membrane electrodialysis, and zero-liquid discharge hybrid systems for this purpose.
Selected Papers of Resource Recovery from Saline Water
Z.H. Foo, D. Rehman, A.T. Bouma, S. Monsalvo, and J.H. Lienhard V, “Lithium Concentration from Salt-lake Brine by Donnan-enhanced Nanofiltration,” Environmental Science & Technology, online 7 April 2023, 57(15):6320–6330, April 2023. (doi) (free to read)
Z.H. Foo, C. Stetson, E. Dach, A. Deshmukh, H. Lee, A.K. Menon, R.Prasher, N.Y. Yip, J.H. Lienhard, and A.D. Wilson, “Solvent-Driven Aqueous Separations for Hypersaline Brine Concentration and Resource Recovery,” Trends in Chemistry, online 7 October 2022, 4(12):1078-1093, 1 December 2022. (open access)
A. Kumar, F. Du, and J.H. Lienhard V, “Caustic Production, Energy Efficiency, and Electrolyzers,” ACS Energy Letters, online 15 September 2021, 6(10):3563−3566, 8 October 2021. (doi) (free to read)
Z.H. Foo, D. Rehman, O.Z. Coombs, A. Deshmukh, and J.H. Lienhard V, “Multicomponent Fickian Solution-Diffusion Model for Osmotic Transport through Membranes,” Journal of Membrane Science, online 7 September 2021, 640:119819, 15 December 2021. (doi) (preprint) (free to read)
A. Kumar, Y. Kim, X. Su, H. Fukuda, G. Naidu, F. Du, S. Vigneswaran, E. Drioli, T.A. Hatton, and J.H. Lienhard V, “Advances and Challenges in Metal Ion Separations from Water,” Trends in Chemistry, online 26 August 2021, 3(10):819-831, 1 October 2021. (doi)
A.T. Bouma, Q. J. Wei, J.E. Parsons, J. Buongiorno, and J.H. Lienhard V, Water for a Warming Climate: A Feasibility Study of Repurposing Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant for Desalination, MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) Working Paper #2021-012 and Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems (CANES) Report MIT-NES-TR-020, July 2021. (CEEPR report) (CANES report)
Y.D. Ahdab, G. Schücking, D. Rehman, and J.H. Lienhard V, “Cost effectiveness of conventional and solar powered monovalent selective electrodialysis for seawater desalination in greenhouses,” Applied Energy, online 20 July 2021, 301:117425, 1 November 2021. (doi) (preprint)
A. Kumar, G. Naidu, H. Fukuda, F. Du, S. Vigneswaran, E. Drioli, and J.H. Lienhard V, “Metals Recovery from Seawater Desalination Brines: Technologies, Opportunities and Challenges,” ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, online 1 June 2021, 9(23):7704-7712, 1 June 2021. (doi)
D. Rehman, Y.D. Ahdab, and J.H. Lienhard V, “Monovalent selective electrodialysis: modelling transport in multi-ionic solutions across selective membranes,” Water Research, online 22 April 2021, 199:117171, 1 July 2021. (doi) (preprint)
L. Wang, D. Rehman, Z. Yang, Q. Han, P. Sun, L. Zhang, A. Deshmukh, Z. Wang, H.-D. Park, J.H. Lienhard, and C.Y. Tang, “A novel positively-charged metal-coordinated nanofiltration membrane for lithium recovery,” ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, online 2 April 2021, 13(14):16906–16915, 2021. (doi)
Y.D. Ahdab, G. Schücking, D. Rehman, and J.H. Lienhard V, “Treatment of greenhouse wastewater for reuse or disposal using monovalent selective electrodialysis,” Desalination, online 14 March 2021, 507:115037, 1 July 2021. (doi) (preprint)
Y.D. Ahdab, D. Rehman, G. Schücking, M. Barbosa, and J.H. Lienhard V, “Treating irrigation water using high-performance membranes for monovalent selective electrodialysis,” ACS ES&T—Water, online 15 Sept. 2020, 1(1): 117–124, 2021. (doi) (preprint)
J.S. McNally, Z.H. Foo, A. Deshmukh, C.J. Orme, J.H. Lienhard V, A.D. Wilson, “Solute displacement in the aqueous phase of water-NaCl-organic ternary mixtures relevant to solvent-driven water treatment,” RSC Advances, 49(10):29516, 10 August 2020. (doi: Open access)
Y.D. Ahdab, D. Rehman, and J.H. Lienhard V, “Brackish water desalination for greenhouses: improving groundwater quality for irrigation using monovalent selective electrodialysis reversal,” J. Membrane Sci., online 26 March 2020, 610:118072, 1 September 2020. (doi link) (preprint)
K.G. Nayar and J.H. Lienhard V, “Brackish water desalination for greenhouse agriculture: comparing the costs of RO, CCRO, EDR, and monovalent-selective EDR,” Desalination, online 8 November 2019, 475:114188, 1 February 2020. (doi link) (preprint)
A. Kumar, H. Fukuda, T.A. Hatton, J.H. Lienhard V, “Lithium Recovery from Oil and Gas Produced Water: A Need for Growing Energy Industry,” ACS Energy Letters, 4:1471-1474, 5 June 2019. (OPEN ACCESS)
A. Kumar, K.R. Phillips, J. Cai, U. Schröder, J.H. Lienhard V, “Integrated valorization of desalination brine via NaOH production: opportunities and challenges,” Angewandte Chemie Intl. Ed., online 21 Feb. 2019, 58(20):6502–6511, 13 May 2019. (doi link) (preprint)
Schematic illustration of different sources of brine for the DE-BMED process. At top right, brine is produced through desalinating seawater. At bottom, salt brines are created by desalinating brackish ground water or through salt mining. Finally, on the left-hand side, treated industrial waste water effluent may also produce brine as a by-product (Kumar et al., Nature Catalysis, 2019)
K.G. Nayar, J. Fernandes, R.K. McGovern, B.S. Al-Anzi, J.H. Lienhard V, “Cost and energy needs of RO-ED crystallizer systems for zero brine discharge seawater desalination,” Desalination, online 8 February 2019, 457:115-132, 1 May 2019. (doi link) (preprint)
K.G. Nayar, J. Fernandes, R.K. McGovern, K.P. Dominguez, A. McCance, B.S. Al-Anzi, J.H. Lienhard V, “Cost and energy requirements of hybrid RO and ED brine concentration systems for salt production,” Desalination, online 29 January 2019, 456:97-120, 15 April 2019. (doi link) (preprint)
F. Du, D.M. Warsinger, T.I. Urmi, G.P. Thiel, A. Kumar, and J.H. Lienhard V, “Sodium hydroxide production from seawater desalination brine: process design and energy efficiency,” Environmental Science & Technology, 52(10):5949–5958, 18 April 2018. (doi link) (Free reprints)
G.P. Thiel, A. Kumar, A. Gómez-González, and J.H. Lienhard V, “Utilization of Seawater Desalination Brine for Sodium Hydroxide Production: Technologies, Engineering Principles, Recovery Limits and Future Directions,” ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, online 7 Nov. 2017, 5(12):11147–11162, 2017. (doi link) (eprints) (preprint)