Reverse electrodialysis (RED) is the process of extracting salinity gradient energy from the difference in salt concentration between river and ocean. Professor Sidney Loeb of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev created a way in 1977 for harnessing the energy generated by this procedure using a heat engine. United States Patent US4171409. A stack of alternating cation and anion exchange membranes used in reverse electrodialysis allows the passage of fresh water and salt solutions. The overall potential of the system is the sum of the potential differences across all membranes. Each membrane creates a voltage due to the chemical potential difference between salt and fresh water. The method relies on a difference in ion concentration rather than an electric field, which has consequences.
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