The main benefit of electrodialysis is the high recovery, especially in the water recovery. Another advantage is the fact that not high pressure is applied which implies that the effect fouling is not significant and consequently no chemicals are required to fight against them. Moreover, the fouling layer is not compact which leads to a higher recovery and to a long membrane life. It is also important that the treatments are for concentrations higher than 70,000 ppm eliminating the concentration limit. Finally, the energy required to operate is low due to the non-phase change. In fact, it is lower in comparison with the needed in the multi effect distillation (MED) and mechanical vapour compression (MVC) processes.
The main drawback of electrodialysis is the current density limit, the process must be operated at a lower current density than the maximum allowed. The fact is that at certain voltage applied the diffusion of ions through the membrane are not linear leading to water dissociation, which would reduce the efficiency of the operation. Another aspect to take into account is that although low energy is required to operate, the higher the salt feed concentration is, the higher the energy needed will be. Finally, in the case of some products, it must be considered that electrodialysis does not remove microorganisms and organic contaminants, therefore a post-treatment is necessary.