Taiwan
The “2030 Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs), encompassing SDG6 (Clean Water) and SDG13 (Climate Action), inspire us to contemplate how to ensure universal access to clean and safe water and address the consequences of climate change. What mitigation strategies should be in place? We conducted a desalination experiment employing a flow-electrode capacitive deionization system, and we enhanced the electrodes with carbon cloth. The experiment operated under conditions of 0.4 V for 450 minutes. In the desalination chamber, the seawater's conductivity decreased from 45.36 mS/cm to 0.29 mS/cm, while it increased to 76.17 mS/cm in the concentrate chamber. This resulted in a desalination rate of 726.98 μg/min/cm2, energy consumption of 55.29 kJ/mol, and a charge efficiency of 69.79%. These results successfully achieved seawater desalination. The separated brine was then subjected to mineralization reactions with CO2 and the basalt from Penghu. In the initial stages of the brine mineralization and sequestration reaction, a significant reaction between CO2 and cations in the aqueous solution caused a decrease in the overall concentration and pH of the solution, shifting the overall reaction toward basalt dissolution. As the reaction time increased, the basalt dissolution rate gradually increased, leading to an increase in cation concentration and pH in the aqueous solution, thereby shifting the overall reaction towards mineralization and precipitation. Combining the desalination technique of the flow-electrode capacitive deionization system with the mineralization technique of brine and basalt, it is possible to obtain valuable water resources while also achieving the goal of carbon neutrality.