COMPUTATIONAL STUDY FOR PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF FLOW CHANNELS INSIDE CDI UNIT CELL

In the present study, computations for flow fields inside the CDI unit cells with electrodes and spacers have been made to evaluate their performance. Three types of unit cells that include a planar type, a serpentine channel type, and a spiral wound type were considered and their flow characteristics were compared. From the computational results, it is found that the serpentine channel type has a large flow resistance and can not guarantee the outflow flux for industrial applications. On the other hand, the planar type can sustain a large enough outflow flux but it's efficiency is low for the electrode-use because of the non-uniform velocity distribution inside the cell and dead zones in every corner. Finally, The spiral wound type has not only a large outflow flux as much as the planar type has, but also a high efficiency for the electrode-use because of uniform velocity distribution. From this comparison, we can expect that the spiral wound type of CDI unit cell would have a high performance deionization capability.