Competitive anion transport in desalting of mixtures of organic acids by batch electrodialysis

Desalting and separation of binary and quaternary acid mixtures via batch electrodialysis are investigated in this article. A monoselective cation exchange membrane and either a non-selective or a monoselective anion exchange membrane are employed in the electrodialysis stack. The effects of current density and composition of the initial feed of the electrodialysis stack (employing a non-selective anion exchange membrane) on its performance are studied in experiments involving mixtures of acetic and succinic acids. The effect of the type of the anion exchange membrane on the process performance is examined in desalting experiments involving a mixture of acetic, formic, lactic, and succinic acids, The trends observed in the experiments are interpreted in terms of species-specific parameters (such as molar concentration, charge on ionic species, molecular weight, degree of ionization, and ionic equivalent conductivity) and characteristics of anion exchange membrane used. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.