Electrodeionization systems were first suggested to remove small amounts of radioactive elements from contaminated waters [27], but the principal current application is the preparation of ultrapure water for the electronics and pharmaceutical industries [28]. The process is sometimes used as a polishing step after the water has been pretreated with a reverse osmosis unit.In the production of ultrapure water for the electronics industry, salt concentrations must be reduced to the ppb range. This is a problem with conventional electrodialysis units because the low conductivity of very dilute feed water streams generally limits the process to producing water in the 10 ppm range. This limitation can be overcome by filling the dilute chambers of the electrodialysis stack with fine mixed-bed ion exchange beads as shown in Figure 10.18. The ions enter the chamber, partition into the ion exchange resin beads and are concentrated many times. As a result ion and current flow occur through the resin bed, and the resistance of the cell is much lower than for a normal cell operating on the same very dilute feed. An additional benefit is that, towards the bottom of the bed where the ion concentration is in the ppb range, a certain amount of water splitting occurs. This produces hydrogen and hydroxyl ions that also migrate to the membrane surface through the ion exchange beads. The presence of these ions maintains a high pH in the anion exchange beads and a low pH in the cation exchange beads. These extreme pHs enhance the ionization and removal of weakly ionized species such as carbon dioxide and silica that would otherwise be difficult to remove. Such modified electrodialysis systems can reduce most ionizable solutes to below ppb levels.
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