Ion-separation testing cells let you isolate the membrane-transport step from the rest of your process and measure it under controlled, reproducible flow. The fixtures in this collection are built for benchtop screening of capacitive deionization, electrodialysis, reactive CO2 capture, and related electro-driven separations — where the question is how selectively ions move across a membrane or porous electrode under an applied field, and how that selectivity holds up over hours of cycling.
The hardware here splits into a few working categories:
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Flow-electrode CDI (FCDI) cells — symmetric plate-and-frame stacks with flowing carbon-slurry electrodes, ion-exchange membranes, and a feed-water channel. Use these when you want continuous desalination without a regeneration half-cycle.
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Integrated reactive capture / conversion cells — single-unit fixtures that feed a CO2-loaded capture medium (carbamate or bicarbonate) directly to the cathode, so you can study capture and electroreduction as one coupled process instead of two.
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Porous solid-electrolyte (PSE) reactors — three-chamber stacks with cation- and anion-conducting membranes around a porous middle channel, designed to electrosynthesize pure liquid products without spectator salts in the output stream.
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Optically accessible flow electrolyzers — flow cells with quartz or sapphire windows in the end plate or flow field, for operando observation of bubbles, precipitates, and concentration gradients during ion transport.
All cells in this section are sized for laboratory screening rather than pilot scale: typical active areas are a few square centimeters, the bodies are PTFE, PEEK, or anodized aluminum with chemically resistant gaskets, and the flow plates accept the membrane chemistries you are already using elsewhere in the lab — PFSA cation-exchange ionomers, quaternary-ammonium anion-exchange membranes, or bipolar laminates.
If you are quantifying salt removal or selectivity, start with the FCDI and electrodialysis-style fixtures. If you are coupling CO2 capture to electroreduction in one step, look at the integrated reactive-capture cells and PSE reactors. For real-time diagnostics on any of the above, the windowed flow electrolyzers in this section let you watch the channel while it runs. For closely related hardware, see testing cells for gas capture and separation and ion-exchange membranes.
