Pressure electroosmotic dewatering with continuous removal of electrolysis products

Pressurised electroosmotic dewatering (PED) is usually implemented in classical filters with the electrodes making a direct contact with the material or the filter cloths. Thus, electrolysis products generated at the electrodes (gas, ions) tend to accumulate in the solid/liquid mixture being dewatered. This results in a non-uniform distribution of water content, porosity, electric field intensity, and particle zeta potential throughout the mixture, affecting progress of the PED process. This paper proposes a specific design of filter press to study PED in the absence of disturbances from electrolysis products. An experimental study was carried out on a gelatinous bentonite suspension at 8.5% w/w solid. The influence of the ionic conductivity of suspension (2-25 mS/cm), the current intensity (20-300 mA) and the pressure (2.5-15 bar) were investigated. In order to improve the energetic yield of PED, the conductivity and current intensity should be limited, as observed in earlier works. The pressure increase considerably aids the water removal and leads to better product dryness. For PED at 15 bar and 100 mA, the bentonite reached 40% w/w solid for 0.7 kWh/kg of water removed. This study emphasizes that to analyse PED precisely it is important to clarify the dependence of the electroosmotic flow rate on the porosity and pressure.