Redesign-to-cost on a saltwater filter module

Creating clean drinking water from brackish water

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Electrodialysis is a process for the separation of ions in salt solutions, in which the desired separation of substances is achieved by a sequence of ion exchange membranes. The customer uses the process to desalinate seawater in order to supply coastal hotels with drinking water. The project objective was to revise the design of the existing filter modules in order to achieve a significant reduction in manufacturing costs. In a first step (short-term solution), a reduction of 38% of the manufacturing costs was achieved by means of alternative operating principles for the cost drivers while retaining the basic system design. In the second step, a future solution was developed, which considered the redesign of the entire system, taking into account alternative manufacturing options. The result was a 74% reduction in manufacturig costs compared to the original solution.