In this study, the potential of the application of membrane electrode assembly (MEA) to energy harvesting from salinity gradient by reverse electrodialysis is experimentally investigated. The MEA, which consists of a cation exchange membrane and two porous silver/silver chloride electrodes, is developed. Power generation from the MEA located between sodium chloride solutions having various differences in concentration is measured. The highest power generation density achieved is 4.1 W m−2, which is greater than those reported in previous studies on conventional reverse electrodialysis cells.
This research was supported by Nano-Material Technology Development Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by Ministry of Science and ICT ( NRF-2011-0030285 ). We would like to thank Mr. Yun Hyun Lee for his help and discussion in transference number measurements.
