Transport coefficients in desalting processes by electrodialysis

In this work a thermodynamic analysis on the transport equations in the processes of electrodiffusion (EF) and electrodialysis (ED) has been developed. The transport equations are classified in two sets according to the information they contain: i) fundamental and ii) complementary. We determine that there are four fundamental transport coefficients needed to characterize these membrane systems. We also conclude that this number is not reduced to three when the Onsager reciprocal relation (ORR) is assumed. I have also obtained a new expression for the concentration rate in EF and ED processes from the mass and volume balance. This relation provides a new way for evaluating the apparent transport number. This procedure has been applied to two membrane systems using data published in the literature.