Granted Patent B2

US 12,522,524 · App. 18/961,927 · Granted Jan 13, 2026

Inventors: Jawad Mustafa (Al Ain, AE); Ali H. Al-Marzouqi (Al Ain, AE); Nayef Mohamed Ghasem (Al Ain, AE)

Assignee: UNITED ARAB EMIRATES UNIVERSITY

C02F1/4693C02F1/265

Abstract

Claims (19)

1 . A method of desalinating reject brine and flue gas emitted from an industrial plant, comprising:

providing a first electrodialysis (ED) stage including a first anolyte chamber, a first catholyte chamber, and a plurality of cell pairs therebetween, each of the cell pairs including a multivalent ion chamber and a monovalent ion chamber separated by a first anion exchange membrane;

providing reject brine from the industrial plant to the multivalent ion chamber and water to the monovalent ion chamber of each of the cell pairs in the first ED stage;

transporting NaCl and monovalent ions from the reject brine in the multivalent ion chamber through the first anion exchange membrane to the monovalent ion chamber;

collecting a stream of water and a multivalent ion mixture in a first output stream from the multivalent ion chamber and a concentrated NaCl rejected brine in a second output stream from the monovalent ion chamber;

providing a second ED stage including a plurality of cell groups between second anolyte and catholyte chambers, each of the cell groups including a flue gas chamber, a carbonate chamber, a second anion exchange membrane separating the flue gas chamber and the carbonate chamber, a concentrated brine chamber, a cation exchange membrane separating the carbonate chamber and the concentrated brine chamber, an acid chamber, and a third anion exchange membrane separating the concentrated brine chamber and the acid chamber;

providing concentrated NaCl reject brine from the first ED stage to the concentrated brine chamber;

providing water to the acid chamber;

dissolving CO 2 from flue gas emitted from the industrial plant to provide CO 3 −2 and HCO 3 −1 ions from CO 2 using a bubble column contactor;

transporting the CO 3 −2 and HCO 3 −1 ions to the carbonate chamber through the second anion exchange membrane between the flue gas chamber and the carbonate chamber;

transporting sodium ions from the concentrated brine chamber to the carbonate chamber through the cation exchange membrane to produce a sodium carbonate mixture; and

transporting Cl ions from the concentrated brine chamber to the acid chamber through the third anion exchange membrane to produce an acid mixture.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the sodium carbonate mixture includes Na 2 CO 3 and NaHCO 3 .

3 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising transferring the sodium carbonate mixture to a freeze dryer to produce a solid powder mixture of Na 2 CO 3 and NaHCO 3 .

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein an electrolyte is circulated between the first catholyte and anolyte chambers of the first ED stage.

5 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the electrolyte is sulphamic acid.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein an electrolyte is separately circulated in each of the second anolyte and catholyte chambers of the second ED stage.

7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the electrolyte circulated in the anolyte chamber is sulphamic acid and the electrolyte circulated in the catholyte chamber is sodium hydroxide.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the flue gas includes about 10% CO 2 .

Continuity (2)

References Cited (13)