In this disclosure, a process of recycling acid, base and the salt reagents required in the Li recovery process is introduced. A membrane electrolysis cell which incorporates an oxygen depolarized cathode is implemented to generate the required chemicals onsite. The system can utilize a portion of the salar brine or other lithium-containing brine or solid waste to generate hydrochloric or sulfuric acid, sodium hydroxide and carbonate salts. Simultaneous generation of acid and base allows for taking advantage of both chemicals during the conventional Li recovery from brines and mineral rocks. The desalinated water can also be used for the washing steps on the recovery process or returned into the evaporation ponds. The method also can be used for the direct conversion of lithium salts to the high value LiOH product. The method does not produce any solid effluent which makes it easy-to-adopt for use in existing industrial Li recovery plants.

A dryer system includes an electrodialytic regenerator that comprises a first channel that dilutes a first stream of liquid desiccant and a second channel that concentrates a second stream of the liquid desiccant. An air-liquid interface is in fluid communication with the second stream of the liquid desiccant and an input air stream and exposes the second stream of the liquid desiccant to the input air stream. The absorption of the water from the input air stream creates a dehumidified air stream. The system includes a heat transfer element in thermal communication with the air-liquid interface. The heat transfer element carries latent heat generated from the absorption of the water from the input air stream. The system includes a drying chamber coupled to receive the dehumidified air stream and the heat.

A system and method provide improved ultrafiltration of charged/uncharged solutes in a fluid, especially a body fluid. The improvement is achieved through imposed electric field and/or surface charge patterning to a permeable membrane. In many of the embodiments, at least one selected material is used as an additive on a permeate side of the permeable membrane to reduce the sieving coefficient of the membrane with regard to a solute present in the fluid.

Ion Concentration Polarization (ICP) purification devices and methods for building massively-parallel implementations of the same, said devices being suitable for separation of salts, heavy metals and biological contaminants from source water.

Surface conduction in porous media can drastically alter the stability and morphology of electrodeposition at high rates, above the diffusion-limited current. Above the limiting current, surface conduction inhibits growth in the positive membrane and produces irregular dendrites, while it enhances growth and suppresses dendrites behind a deionization shock in the negative membrane. The discovery of uniform growth contradicts quasi-steady “leaky membrane” models, which are in the same universality class as unstable Laplacian growth, and indicates the importance of transient electro-diffusion or electro-osmotic dispersion. Shock electrodeposition could be exploited for high-rate recharging of metal batteries or manufacturing of metal matrix composite coatings.

In this disclosure, a process of recycling acid, base and the salt reagents required in the Li recovery process is introduced. A membrane electrolysis cell which incorporates an oxygen depolarized cathode is implemented to generate the required chemicals onsite. The system can utilize a portion of the salar brine or other lithium-containing brine or solid waste to generate hydrochloric or sulfuric acid, sodium hydroxide and carbonate salts. Simultaneous generation of acid and base allows for taking advantage of both chemicals during the conventional Li recovery from brines and mineral rocks. The desalinated water can also be used for the washing steps on the recovery process or returned into the evaporation ponds. The method also can be used for the direct conversion of lithium salts to the high value LiOH product. The method does not produce any solid effluent which makes it easy-to-adopt for use in existing industrial Li recovery plants.

Provided is a filter unit including conductive filters having permeation holes, a pair of electrodes configured to apply a voltage to the conductive filters, and an insulator configured to prevent a current from flowing between the pair of electrodes.

This invention provides a membrane electrode material and its preparation method, as well as the application of the material into lithium extraction by adsorption-electrochemical coupling method. The membrane electrode material is described as MnO@C. The preparation steps are as follows: LiMn.sub.2O.sub.4 is firstly obtained by calcining lithium carbonate and manganese carbonate, which is then dispersed in hydrochloric acid solution. After stirring and separating, the solid products are dried to obtain λ-MnO.sub.2. The λMnO.sub.2 is added to the raw material of Mn-MOF-74, and then the Mn-MOF-74 coated λ-MnO.sub.2 can be obtained by hydrothermal reaction. By further calcining Mn-MOF-74 coated λ-MnO.sub.2 in nitrogen atmosphere, the membrane capacitor/electrode material can be obtained as MnO@C. The material is fabricated into an adsorption film electrode plate and assembled into an adsorption-electrochemical coupling lithium extraction device. The pure lithium solution can be obtained in the recovery pool through the combined lithium extraction and lithium recovery process. In this invention, the thickness of the carbon coating layer in the electrode material is adjustable. Adsorption-electrochemical coupling technology takes the advantages of both adsorption and electrochemical lithium intercalation, which can extract and recover lithium resources with high capacity. Thus, this invention not only achieves high-efficiency separation of lithium resources, but also opens up a new way for the extraction of lithium resources.

Disclosed are systems and processes for the removal and conversion of pollutants in water. A system includes a set of electrodes with at least one electrode having an integrated catalyst material. The system is operatable in a first, electrodialysis mode in which one or more pollutants are separated from a feedwater stream, and a second electrolysis mode in which the separated pollutant(s) are catalytically converted into benign products by way of the catalyst material of the electrode. Electrodialysis and electrolysis are therefore carried out using the same unit.

A 3D nanopore device for characterizing biopolymer molecules includes a first selecting layer having a first axis of selection. The device also includes a second selecting layer disposed adjacent the first selecting layer and having a second axis of selection orthogonal to the first axis of selection. The device further includes an third electrode layer disposed adjacent the second selecting layer, such that the first selecting layer, the second selecting layer, and the third electrode layer form a stack of layers along a Z axis and define a plurality of nanopore pillars.