Most Australian surface and ground waters have relatively high concentration of bromide between 400-8,000 µg/L and even higher concentration in seawater between 60,000-78,000 µg/L. Although bromide is not regulated, even at low concentrations of 50-100 µg/L, it can lead to the formation of several types of harmful disinfection by-products (DBPs) during the disinfection process. One of the major concerns with brominated DBPs is the formation of bromate (BrO3-), a serious carcinogen that is formed when water containing a high 32 concentration of bromide is disinfected. As a result, bromate is highly regulated in Australian 33 water standards with the maximum concentration of 20 µg/L in the drinking water. Since 34 seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plays an important role in augmenting fresh water supplies in Australia, SWRO plants in Australia usually adopt 2 nd pass brackish water reverse osmosis (BWRO) for effective bromide removal, which is not only energy-intensive to operate but also has higher capital cost. In this study, we evaluated the feasibility of membrane capacitive deionization (MCDI) as one of the alternatives to the 2 nd pass BWRO for effective bromide removal in a more energy efficient way.