Study of solar thermal power generation based on reverse electrodialysis

TPG-RED (Thermal Power Generation Based on Reverse Electrodialy-sis) was studied to explore the new method of solar thermal power generating based on Reverse Electrodialysis (RED) in this paper. RED is a process that transfers the salinity gradient between sea water and fresh water to electricity. TPG-RED has combined RED with thermal power generation to transfer thermal energy from solar to electricity which has many advantages of huge available temperature range, sustainability, non-pollution, simple structure, and so on. Respec-tively, using “1 mol/L H2 SO4 solution—0.0001 mol/L H2 SO4 solution” and “1 mol/L Na2 SO4 solution—0.0001 mol/L Na2SO4 solution” as the working medium at 30°C heat source temperature to carry out power generating experiment. After 400 min, both open circuit voltages reached 28.4 and 31.0 mV respectively and initial output current were 267 and 295 µA respectively, after 120 min dischar-ging, the output current was basically stable, reached 7 and 5 µA respectively. The effect of heat source temperature on output current shows that TPG-RED can generate electricity at 20°C–55°C heat source temperature, and the output current increased with the temperature increasing. In the ion exchange membrane solution concentration limit, the output current increased with the concentration difference increasing. © 2020, Tech Science Press. All rights reserved.