Technical
Paper
New High-Performance Spacers in Electro-
Dialysis Reversal (EDR) Systems
Author: Antonia von Gottberg, Product Manager,
Ionics, Incorporated
This paper was originally published in Proceedings
of 1998 AWWA Anual Conference, June 21-25,
1998, Dallas Texas. Reprinted with the permission
of the American Water Works Association.
Note: GE Water & Process Technologies purchased
Ionics in 2005.
Abstract
A new high-performance spacer, which promotes
greater turbulent flow in an electrodialysis stack,
has been developed and is in operation. The
maximum demineralization that can be obtained in
a single hydraulic stage has been increased in
comparison to one hydraulic stage of conventional
stacks. These high-performance spacers are
incorporated into a new membrane stack that has
38% more usable membrane area than a conven-
tional stack. The increased available membrane
area results in higher demineralization per stack,
so fewer membrane stacks are needed to demin-
eralize a given volume of water to a specific TDS
level. The high-performance membrane stack is
being used to design systems with a reduction in
membrane area, capital costs, DC power con-
sumption, and operating costs.
These improvements in electrodialysis stack effi-
ciency are accompanied by improvements in sys-
tem hydraulics and control designs, all of which
lead to smaller footprint, simpler control, and lower
pumping power consumption.
The parameters that determine the design of an
EDR plant are reviewed. The performance of the
conventional and the new high-performance
membrane stacks, operating side-byside, are com-
pared.
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Introduction
Electrodialysis (ED) has been a practical technology
for desalination of brackish waters since the
1950s.1 Electrodialysis is an electrochemical sepa-
ration process in which ions are transferred
through ion exchange membranes by means of an
electrical driving force. The components at the
heart of an electrodialysis system are ion-
exchange membranes, which selectively permit the
transfer of ions, and flow spacers, which
seprate the membranes and allow for the
distribution of water across the surface of
the membranes.
The new high performance screen spacer, which
forms the basis of this article, is already being used
to desalt over 10 mgd (50,000 m3/day) of
brackish water for potable, industrial, and agricul-
tural applications.
Electrodialysis Reversal
Electrodialysis Reversal (EDR) is an automatic self-
cleaning version of electrodialysis in which the
polarity of the DC voltage is reversed two to four
times per hour.2 When DC voltage is applied across
a pair of electrodes, positively charged ions such
as sodium move towards the cathode, and nega-
tively charged ions such as chloride move towards
the anode. Membranes are placed between the
electrodes to form several compartments. Flow
spacers are placed between the membranes to
support the membranes and to create turbulent
flow. Water flows along the spacers flowpaths
across the surface of the membranes rather than
through the membranes as in Reverse Osmosis
(RO). Charged ions travel through the membranes
under the influence of an applied DC voltage. By
alternating cation transfer membranes and anion
2010, General Electric Company. All rights reserved.
TP1087EN.doc Mar-10
transfer membranes, alternating flow streams
dilute streams and concentrate streamsare created.
Cell pairs consist of a cation transfer membrane, a
dilute flow spacer, an anion transfer membrane
and a concentrate flow spacer. Up to 600 cell pairs
are stacked on one another to make up a mem-
brane stack as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Electrodialysis Stack
System Configurations
Each membrane stack can desalt a nominal
amount of water depending on the number of cell
pairs. A typical 600-cell pair membrane stack can
desalt about 200,000 gpd (757 m3/day). The
amount of salt removal, or cut, is a function of sev-
eral factors that are discussed in this paper. A
nominal cut might be 50%. For applications requir-
ing a greater amount of desalting, stacks are
placed in series, or stages. Each additional stage
removes 50% of the remaining salt. For larger
volume applications, stacks are placed in
parallel lines.
Salt Removal Rate
The amount of salt that can be removed in a stack
depends on the feedwater quality, the water tem-
perature, the properties of the ion-exchange
membrane, and the spacer properties. This paper
focuses on the spacer properties, but discusses
other factors where relevant.
Faradays Law
Faradays Law, as related to the ED process, states
that the passage of 96,500 amperes of electric cur-
rent for one second will transfer one gram equiva-
Page 2
lent of salt. This law is used as the basis for
calculating the amount of electric current needed
in an ED system to transfer a specific quantity of
salts.3 For ED calculations, Faradays Law is:
(Nfeed-Nproduct) = I * #cp * ce / (F * Q)
Nfeed = feed normality
nproduct =product normality
I = current
#cp = number of cell pairs
F = Faradays constant
ce = current efficiency for ion transport
Q = dilute flowrate
Current efficiency for ion transport is a function of
the ion-exchange membranes and the stream
concentrations and is in the range of 70-90%.
Faradays law says that, for a membrane stack
with a fixed number of cell pairs and flowrate, the
greater the DC current applied to the stack, the
greater the salt removal. It would appear that the
best way to operate an EDR stack would be to
apply as high a current as possible to make a very
high cut and minimize capital equipment cost.
There is, however, a mass transfer limitation on the
amount of current that can be applied to the
stack. At a certain limiting current density, polariza-
tion occurs.
Polarization
Consider the transfer of chloride ions from the
dilute stream through an anion-exchange mem-
brane. Figure 2 illustrates the mechanisms for
mass transfer from the dilute stream through the
membrane. If the transfer number of chlorides in
the membrane is tm and the transfer number of
chloride ions in solution is ts, then the rate of trans-
fer from the membrane surface through an ion-
exchange membrane due to a direct current of
density CD is given by tm CD/F, and the rate of
transfer to the membrane surface through the
solution due to a direct current is given by ts CD/F.
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Figure 2: Mass Transfer Through an Ion-Exchange
Membrane
tm is greater than ts, so the concentration of ions at
the membrane drops, forming a concentration
boundary layer between the membrane surface
and the bulk dilute stream. The concentration gra-
dient causes ions to diffuse from the bulk dilute
stream towards the membrane surface. The ion
flux is determined by the diffusion coefficient for
ion transport through the solution, the concentra-
tion difference between the bulk stream and
the membrane surface, and the boundary
layer thickness.
The mass balance at the membrane surface is
given by:4
(tm ts) CD/F = D(Nb Nm) /
where
D = diffusion coefficient
Nb = normality in bulk solution
Nm = normality in solution at membrane
surface
= boundary layer thickness
As the current density is increased, the concentra-
tion at the membrane surface, Nm, decreases until
there are no ions at the membrane surface to
transfer. At this point, water splitting, or polariza-
tion occurs. Water dissociates into hydrogen (H+)
and hydroxyl (OH-) ions. Experimentally, polariza-
tion is found to occur at the anion transfer mem-
brane first. Since the anion transfer membrane
transfers negatively charged ions, the hydroxyl
ions travel through the membranes. The pH of the
dilute stream decreases, and the pH of the concen-
trate stream increases.
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This rise in pH in the concentrate stream increases
the likelihood of precipitation of scaling salts in the
anion transfer membrane. This will damage the
membranes over time, so it is desirable to operate
at a current density below polarizing conditions.
The current density at which polarization occurs is
defined as the limiting current density and is
mathematically described by the condition that Nm
= 0. Hence, (CD/N)lim = D F/((tm- ts) ).
The factor, (CD/N)lim, is related to the mass transfer
coefficient. The limiting current density is always
normalized by the dilute stream normality because
the more concentrated the dilute stream, the
greater the current required to reach polarization.
To minimize the membrane area required for an
application, (CD / N)lim must be maximized by
changing the boundary layer thickness, the other
parameters being physical properties of the system.
Flow Spacers
The boundary layer is a function of velocity and
flow spacer geometry. The boundary layer thick-
ness may be minimized by promoting turbulent
flow, and thus increasing the limiting current den-
sity.5,6,7 The amount of turbulence promotion is a
function of the velocity in the flow spacerthe
higher the velocity, the greater the turbulence. The
operating velocity in an ED stack is limited by the
pressure drop along the flow spacer and through
the stack. There is a maximum inlet pressure at
which to operate a membrane stack to prevent
external leakage. If the pressure drop is too great,
then the number of stages that can be utilized in
series is limited. Hence, it is desirable to find a tur-
bulence promoter that optimizes the performance
by maximizing limiting current density and mini-
mizing pressure drop.
The type of flow spacer that has had the most
commercial success in terms of the total installed
capacity of ED/EDR plants is the tortuous path
spacer.8 This spacer is manufactured by using two
sheets of low-density polyethylene with die-cut
flow channels. The two sheets of polyethylene are
glued together to form an under/over flow path
that creates turbulence. Since the under/over
straps that create the turbulence are fairly infre-
quent, the amount of turbulence promotion is lim-
ited. At higher velocities, however, the turbulence is
sufficient to obtain reasonable limiting current
densities. The pressure drop per unit length for this
Page 3
design is low, so a long flowpath can be used with-
out having excessive pressure drops. By
utilizing a long tortuous flowpath and operating at
velocities in the 20 - 40 cm/s range, this design
optimizes turbulence promotion and stack pres-
sure drop. The disadvantage of this approach is
that the tortuous design has significant membrane
area wasted as sealing area. In a typical commer-
cial design, 36% of the membrane area is shad-
owed by sealed area, so only 64% of the
membrane area is usable for desalting. Figure 3
illustrates a tortuous path flow spacer, designated
Mark III by the manufacturer.
Figure 3: Mark III Flow Spacer
Several manufacturers of electrodialysis equip-
ment have employed screen spacers to promote
turbulence. In these spacers, woven or non-woven
netting is used in the flow path to create turbu-
lence. In the 1950s the authors company looked
into the development of screen spacers and found
that promoting turbulence with a screen spacer
was better than with a tortuous path spacer. The
use of screen spacers was not practical at the
time, because netting was relatively expensive, and
methods for producing screen spacers in large
volumes were limited. For practical long-term
operation of large electrodialysis systems, the
thickness tolerances of flow spacers are critical.
Since a thousand or more spacers are piled on top
of one another in an electrodialysis stack, even
slight variations in component thickness can lead
to large variations in the stack heights. The thick-
ness of the sealing area around the flowpath must
be very close to the thickness of the flow spacer. If
the sealing area is thicker than the turbulence
promoters, the turbulence promoters do not touch
the membrane surface. This can cause laminar
flow at the membrane surface, which in turn
reduces limiting current density significantly.
In the 1990s, with the development of the spiral-
wound RO element, the technology for manufac-
turing non-woven netting has improved dramati-
cally. As with flow spacers in an ED system, the
Page 4
retentate spacer in an RO element needs to pro-
mote turbulence to minimize the thickness of the
concentration polarization boundary layer at the
membrane surface. These retentate spacers are
manufactured from non-woven polypropylene net-
ting. The RO industrys requirements for high vol-
ume production, as well as high tolerances to
maximize the amount of membrane area in an RO
element, have led to improved manufacture of
non-woven netting. It has become useful to take a
new look at screen spacers for EDR systems.
Comparison of Spacer Properties
Bench scale spacers were manufactured, and their
performance, in terms of limiting current density
and pressure drop, was measured in the laboratory
for a sodium chloride solution at 70F. The limiting
current density was defined as the current density
at which the current efficiency for hydroxyl ion
transfer was 2 x 10-5 in an all-anion stack.
Experience has shown that this amount of increase
in pH in the concentrate stream would be needed
to significantly increase the risk of precipitation.
Figure 4 shows a graph of limiting current density
versus velocity for conventional tortuous path
spacers and a screen spacer manufactured with
non-woven netting. This netting is similar, but not
identical, to the netting used in many commercial
RO elements. For a given velocity, the limiting cur-
rent density for the screen spacer is about three
times that of the tortuous path spacer.
The limiting current density defines the maximum
amount of salt that can be removed per unit
length. For example, for a 0.01 N solution of sodium
chloride at 70F operating at 70% of the limiting
current density, the salt removal per unit length is
shown in Figure 5. The screen spacer removes
more salt per unit length than the tortuous path
spacer, so a shorter flowpath can be used to ob-
tain a desired level of salt removal. For both spac-
ers, the lower the velocity, the greater the salt
removal. The lower the velocity, however, the lower
the flowrate per unit width, and so a wider flow-
path is needed to desalt a given volume of water.
The pressure drop per unit length is much greater
for the screen spacer than the tortuous path
spacer, as shown in Figure 6. Since the frequency
of turbulence promoters is much higher for the
screen spacer than for the tortuous path spacer,
these results are not surprising. To minimize the
pressure drop, the optimum velocity for the screen
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spacer is in the 6 -12 cm/s range, and a short flow-
path length is selected.
Figure 4: Limiting CD/N versus Velocity
Figure 5: Salt Removal per Unit Length versus Velocity
for 0.01 N NaCl at 70F
Figure 6: Pressure Drop per Unit Length versus
Velocity
High Performance Screen Spacer
The outside dimensions of 18x 40 (46 x 102 cm)
for the high performance screen spacer were
based on the dimensions of pre-existing ion-
exchange membrane production lines and the
requirement for membranes and spacers to be
easy to handle by one person for stack mainte-
nance. A U-shaped flowpath was developed to fit
the optimum flowpath length and width into the
18 x 40 configuration. This spacer design, known
as the Mark IV, has about 74% usable area in
contrast to 64% for the Mark III spacers (see Figure 7).
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Figure 7: Mark IV Flow Spacer
The screen spacer thickness is 0.03 vs. 0.04 (0.08
vs. 0.1 cm) for the conventional tortuous path
spacers. The maximum stack height of a Mark III
stack was 500 cell pairs. This height is determined
by the maximum safe DC voltage that can be ap-
plied to a stack and the dimensions of a standard
shipping container into which the stack can fit.
With the new spacer, the maximum stack height is
600 cell pairs.
Big Boost in Membrane Area
The combination of more usable area per mem-
brane and more cell pairs per stack has led to an
increase of 38% usable membrane area in an elec-
trodialysis stack. The increase in membrane area
per stack combined with the increased current
density that can be applied to a stack means that
fewer stacks are required to desalt a given volume
of water. This leads to capital and building cost
savings for the customer.
Power Consumption
In electrodialysis plant design, there is a trade off
between power consumption and capital cost. For
any particular spacer, the greater the number of
cell pairs, the lower the DC power consumption
and vice versa (Figure 8). In developing the new
spacer, it was important to make sure that capital
cost savings from using fewer stacks and cell pairs
were not accompanied by increases in power con-
sumption. The use of the thinner spacer means
that the electrical resistance of each cell pair is
reduced, so that the overall DC power
consumption for a given number of cell pairs
decreases. Therefore, at constant DC power, fewer
cell pairs can be used with the screen spacer, pro-
viding savings in capital cost without increases in
operating costs.
Page 5

Figure 8: Power Consumption versus Membrane Area
The overall system pressure drop is lower since
fewer stages are required, and this in turn
reduces pumping power. Use of the new spacer
offers significant savings in capital costs and can
reduce the overall power consumption of an
EDR system.
EDR System
The new spacer has been incorporated into a new
system design that minimizes pumping power and
simplifies control.9 Variable Frequency Drives
(VFDs) on the feed and concentrate recycle pumps
are used to control the pump speeds. The feed
pump is controlled by product flow rate, and the
concentrate recycle pump is used to maintain a
constant differential pressure across the mem-
branes. Patented 4-way valves reduce both the
piping required to reverse the flow and the amount
of time the system operates off-spec at polarity
reversal. The control system is PLC (Programmable
Logic Controller) based with a flat touch screen
operator interface that can be integrated with
SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)
systems, if desired. These features reduce both
capital and operating costs when compared with
earlier systems.
Comparisons of Performance
Lake Granbury Surface Water and Treatment
System,Texas
For almost three years, a single Mark IV stack of
500 cell pairs has been operating in parallel with
seven lines of two stages of 500 cell pair Mark III
stacks at the Lake Granbury Surface Water and
Treatment System (LGSWATS). Each line of stacks
was operated with the same flowrate of 106 gpm
(gallons per minute). Approximately 8,000 hours of
operating data was collected. Figure 9 shows con-
ductivity versus time of the feed to the EDR plant
and the product from the Mark IV stack and from
Page 6
the average performance of the product from two
stages of Mark III stacks. This test demonstrated
the ability of the Mark IV stack to consistently
achieve the same salt removal as two stages of
conventional stacks. Figure 10 shows that the DC
power consumption was equal to or lower than the
Mark IV stack, even though there was half the
number of cell pairs.
Figure 9: Conductivity versus Time at LGSWATS
Figure 10: DC Power Consumption versus Time at
LGSWATS
Foss Reservoir,Oklahoma
A comparison between a 240 cell pair Mark IV pro-
totype stack and a 450 cell pair Mark III conven-
tional stack was begun in October 1994 at the Foss
Reservoir water treatment plant, where a 3 mgd
(11,000 m3/day) ED system has been in operation
since 1974. The prototype stack had the equivalent
of two hydraulic stages of Mark IV spacers. The
conventional stack had four hydraulic stages. Both
stacks were operated at a flowrate of 26 gpm (0.1
m3/h). The applied voltage and approach to polari-
zation for both stacks were varied in order to
compare power consumption at different salt
removal rates. An initial period of testing compared
the two stacks over 1,500 hours. Since the initial
comparison, the prototype stack has been used for
various research projects not presented here, and
the screen spacers have been in operation for over
20,000 hours.
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Figure 11: Pressure Drop versus Time at Foss
Reservoir
Figure 11 shows pressure drop and temperature
for both stacks versus time. For the first 500 hours
or so, the feed water temperature was fairly
warmbetween 59F and 68F (15 and 20C). The
pilot test was suspended over Christmas, but when
it was restarted, the feed temperature was much
lower at an average of 43F (6C).
Table 1: Foss Reservoir Stack Comparison
Mark IV Prototype Mark III
# cell pairs 240 450
Conductivity cut 70% 70%
DC power 2.5 kWh/kgal 1.7 kWh/kgal
Stack pressure drop 25 psi 43 psi
Pumping power based on
new system design with 0.8 kWh/kgal 1.1 kWh/kgal
VFDs
Total power consumption 3.3 kWh/kgal 2.8 kWh/kgal
The pressure drop of both stacks increased as the
temperature decreased, and the Mark IV prototype
stack had almost half of the pressure drop of the
Mark III stack. Assuming these stacks would be
used on a new EDR system that uses VFDs to con-
serve energy, the reduced pressure drop represents
a 27% saving in pumping power, as shown in Table 1.
Figure 12 shows the DC power consumption versus
percent salt removal for both stacks during the pe-
riod from 500 1500 operating hours when the
average temperature was 6C and the feed con-
ductivity was constant at 2,100 S/cm.
Although the pressure drop was lower, and a 46%
savings in cell pairs was achieved, the DC power
for the prototype Mark IV stack was greater than
the DC power for the Mark III stack. The reason for
this is that the systems are not operating at points
of equal DC power consumption on their operating
curves, as illustrated in Figure 8. The reduction
from four stages of tortuous path spacers to two
stages of screen spacers was such a large
decrease that the power consumption increased to
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compensate. A comparison of four stages of tortu-
ous path to three stages of screen spacer would
have placed both spacers at the point
of equal DC power consumption on their
operating curves.
Figure 12: DC Power versus Salt Removal at
Foss Reservoir
A summary of the performance comparison is
shown in Table 1 for both stacks at 70% salt
removal. The comparison is based on operating
data between 500 and 1,500 hours when the feed
water conductivity was 2,100 S/cm, and the tem-
perature was about 6C. The comparison demon-
strates a 46% savings in the total membrane area
with only an 18% increase in total power con-
sumption. At Foss Reservoir, where power is quite
inexpensive, this is an attractive trade-off.
Suffolk,Virginia
The Robert G. House Water Treatment Plant in Suf-
folk, Virginia, installed an EDR plant in 1990. This
system treats 3.8 mgd and consists of three EDR
units, each with 8 lines and 3 stages of conven-
tional Mark III stacks.10
The first stage of one line was recently replaced
with a Mark IV stack. The Mark IV stack is the same
size as the Mark III stack, although it includes 600
cell pairs rather than 500 cell pairs in the Mark III
stacks. The Mark IV stack is operating at the same
conditions as the other Mark III stacks in parallel
lines. Each line has the same flowrate of approxi-
mately 110 gpm (0.4 m3/h), and the first stage
applied voltage was 300 V in each case.
Table 2 compares the salt removal for the Mark IV
stack and a Mark III stack in parallel. This data
shows the increase in salt removal that is made
possible by the Mark IV stack. The Mark IV stack
achieves a cut of 50% while the Mark III stack
achieves a cut of 30% under the same
operating conditions.
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Table 2: Suffolk Stack Performance

Product (mg/l) Product (mg/l)

% cut Mark IV % cut Mark III
Feed (mg/l) Mark IV Mark III
Stage 1 Stage 1
Stage 1 Stage 1
Sodium 191 96.1 135 49.7 29.3
Calcium 2.27 0.563 0.811 75.2 64.3
Magnesium 0.931 0.271 0.416 70.9 55.3
Potassium 5.05 2.15 3.46 57.4 31.5
Chloride 21.1 8.36 12 60.4 43.1
Bicarbonate 453 230 320 49.2 29.4
Sulfate 7.04 2.41 5.43 65.8 22.9
Phosphate 2.79 0.973 2.04 65.1 26.9
Fluoride 4.65 2.81 3.08 39.6 33.8
TDS 689 343 482 50.2 30.0

Summary 7. Zhong, K.W.; Zhang, W.R.; Hu, Z.Y. and Li, H.C.,
Effect of Characterizations of Spacer in Elec-
The new high performance spacers make it possi- trodialysis Cells on Mass Transfer, Desalina-
ble to reduce the overall life cycle costs of an EDR tion, 46, 1983, pp. 243-252.
plant. At Lake Granbury, the comparison demon-
8. Wangnick, K., 1996 IDA Worldwide Desalting
strated minimizing cell pairs to reduce capital cost
Plants Inventory Report, No. 14, pp. 176-185.
at constant operating costs. At Foss Reservoir, the
comparison demonstrated reduced capital costs 9. von Gottberg, A.J.M. and Siwak, L.R.,
with only a small increase in power cost. At Suffolk, Re-Engineering of the Electrodialysis Reversal
the comparison demonstrated better product qual- Process, Intl Desalination & Water Reuse
ity from a single membrane stack. Quarterly, Vol. 7/4, Feb./Mar. 1998.
10. Thompson, M.A. and Robinson, Jr., M.P., Suffolk
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