Nitrate Removal by Continuous Electropermutation Using Ion-Exchange Textile I. Modeling

This paper presents a steady-state model of the feed compartment of an electropermutation cell, used for nitrate removal, with ion exchange textiles incorporated as a conducting spacer. In the model the ion-exchange textile is treated as a porous medium and volume averaging is applied to obtain a macrohomogeneous two-phase model. The ion-exchange between the two phases is modeled assuming that the rate-determining step is the mass-transfer resistance on the liquid side of the phase interface. Analysis of the model equations reveals appropriate simplifications. The influence of the governing dimensionless numbers is investigated through simulations based on the model.