A Novel Approach for the Desalination of Seawater by Means of Reusable Poly(acrylic acid) Hydrogels and Mechanical Force

Abstract

Desalination of a sodium chloride solution is achieved by the incorporation of salt depleted water into an acrylic acid based hydrogel and the subsequent deswelling of the gel by mechanical force to gain water with a lower salt content. This is a new approach towards the problem of desalination of seawater that has, to the best of our knowledge, not been presented before. In a proof-of-principle experiment the salt content of a 10 g/L NaCl solution could be reduced by 35% in one cycle. The influence of main chemical parameters, e.g. degree of crosslinking, degree of neutralization and experimental parameters like particle size and salt concentration on the desalination process are examined. Possible optimum conditions for the desalination using a poly(acrylic acid) network are discussed and the construction of a simple apparatus for deswelling by mechanical force is described.