To produce a water-insoluble acidsebacic acidin an environmentally friendly manner, two-phase bipolar membrane electrodialysis (TPBMED) was proposed to convert sodium sebacate into sebacic acid in ethanol−water mixtures. The results indicated that BP-C configuration (BP, bipolar membrane; C, cation-exchange membrane) was better than the other configurations: BP-A (A, anion-exchange membrane), BP-A-C, and BP-A-A. In a TPBMED stack of BP-C configuration, the sodium sebacate could be totally transformed to sebacic acid with a current efficiency of 94% and energy consumption of 2.2 kW h kg−1. The process cost was estimated to be $0.57 kg−1. Nonetheless, to simultaneously dissolve sebacic sodium and sebacic acid, the ethanol content in the mixture was controlled at 60 v/v %, and the maximal concentration of sebacic acid produced was only 0.13 mol dm−3 due to the limit on solubility.
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