Mother liquid discharged from a salt manufacturing plant was electrodialyzed in the batch process incorporated with SO42- ion low-permeable anion-exchange membranes for decreasing Na2SO4 concentration and recovering NaCl. Energy consumption of the electrodialysis was compared with that of the cooling method to precipitate Na2SO4 as Na2SO4 center dot 10H(2)O. Energy consumption of cooling method depends largely on cooling energy for decreasing temperature. If the temperature of the discharged mother liquid cannot be cooled under 31 degrees C in the atmosphere, the cooling method needs much cooling energy, so the electrodialysis is advantageous. If the temperature can be decreased to lower than 31 degrees C in the atmosphere, cooling method is possible. Succeeding to the above investigation, mother liquid was supplied to the batch electrodialysis process in the computer simulation program. The performance changes with time were computed with an instantaneous open/shut feed operation system of a salt solution. Computation was carried out to discuss the performance of the electrodialysis experiment of the mother liquid. The computed data are generally the same as the experimental data for ion flux across a membrane pair J(S), current efficiency eta, solution volume circulated in the desalting side Q(0), energy consumption for desalination E-des and for concentration E-conc. However, the computed solution flux across a membrane pair J(V) and cell voltage V-cell are larger than observed ones. The computed salt concentration at the inlets of desalting cells C'(in), and the salt concentration at the outlets of concentrating cells C '' are less than observed ones. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.