Surging population and climate change will push society, ever more urgently, to harvest lower quality or impaired water supplies (e.g., sea water or brackish groundwater) for drinking water. For example, membrane based seawater desalination (Reverse Osmosis and Electrodialysis) has become a promising technique for providing additional sources of fresh water along coastal communities. However, their widespread adoption is currently limited due to its energy intensive nature and/or limited membrane lifetime and performance, especially during high operation rates. Here, we report a novel, cost-effective, electrode architecture for improving energy efficiency and desalination rates. Specifically, we have replaced planar electrodes in traditional electrodialysis units with electrodes with three-dimensional complex architecture for improved current utilization, while reducing the iR losses due to ion-transport.