Effect of Solution Composition on the Energy Production by Capacitive Mixing in Membrane-Electrode Assembly Ahualli Yapur, Silvia Alejandra Fernández, M. Mar Iglesias Salto, Guillermo Ramón Jiménez Olivares, María Luisa Liu, Fei Vagterfeld, Martijn Delgado Mora, Ángel Vicente Activated carbon particles Blue energy Capacitive energy extraction Donnan potential Ionic exchange membranes Multivalent solutions The final edited version of the paper can be found at: http://pubs.acs.org/articlesonrequest/AOR-c9UMxSzGY3eiU5SENNgT The complete citation is: Ahualli, S.; et al. Effect of Solution Composition on the Energy Production by Capacitive Mixing in Membrane-Electrode Assembly. Journal of Physical Chemistry, 118(29): 15590-15599 (2014). DOI:10.1021/jp504461m Open access in the Journal on May 26, 2015 In this work we consider the extent to which the presence of multi-valent ions in solution modifies the equilibrium and dynamics of the energy production in a capacitive cell built with ion-exchange membranes in contact with high surface area electrodes. The cell potential in open circuit (OCV) is controlled by the difference between both membrane potentials, simulated as constant volume charge regions. A theoretical model is elaborated for steady state OCV, first in the case of monovalent solutions, as a reference. This is compared to the results in multi-ionic systems, containing divalent cations in concentrations similar to those in real sea water. It is found that the OCV is reduced by about 25 % (as compared to the results in pure NaCl solutions) due to the presence of the divalent ions, even in low concentrations. Interestingly, this can be related to the “uphill” transport of such ions against their concentration gradients. On the contrary, their effect on the dynamics of the cell potential is negligible in the case of highly charged membranes. The comparison between model predictions and experimental results shows a very satisfactory agreement, and gives clues for the practical application of these recently introduced energy production methods. 2014-09-17T11:10:56Z 2014-09-17T11:10:56Z 2014 info:eu-repo/semantics/preprint 1932-7447 http://hdl.handle.net/10481/33063 10.1021/jp504461m eng info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/256868 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess American Chemical Society