Class / Patent application number | Description | Number of patent applications / Date published |
210641000 | Utilizing plural diverse membranes | 30 |
20080230474 | System and method for filtering water and/or wastewater - A filter system for filtering water and/or wastewater that includes a roughing filter followed by a polishing filter where the roughing filter is an upflow filter and the polishing filter is a membrane filter. The upflow filter includes a filter bed formed from one or more layers of media. The media may be naturally occurring or plastic. Further, the media may be buoyant or non-buoyant. Preferably, the filter system is formed as a package unit. The upflow filter and membrane filter may share a common base allowing the filter system to be readily transported as a single unit. Alternatively, the membrane filter may be connected to and supported by a vertical wall of the upflow filter. The membrane filter may include membrane filter modules that are housed as a group in a section of the membrane filter or the membrane filter modules may be individually housed. The washing liquid used in washing the upflow filter may be discharged from the upflow filter through the same conduit as the upflow effluent generated during filtration. Preferably, the upflow waste line is positioned adjacent the membrane filter drain to allow the upflow waste line and the membrane filter drain to direct liquid to the same storage area or unit through at least one common conduit. The water level of the clearwell is preferably positioned a sufficient distance below the water level of the upflow filter to achieve the desired loading rate across the membrane filter without the need for pumping the upflow effluent into the membrane filter. | 09-25-2008 |
20090120875 | High Performance Mixed Matrix Membranes Incorporating at Least Two Kinds of Molecular Sieves - The present invention discloses a new type of high performance mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) and methods for making and using the same. The MMMs comprise a continuous polymer matrix and at least two types of molecular sieves dispersed therein. The continuous polymer matrix in the MMM contains at least one type of polymer. The MMM in the form of a dense film, asymmetric flat sheet membrane or otherwise prepared exhibits simultaneously improved selectivity and permeability for gas separations compared to polymer membranes made from a continuous polymer matrix without any molecular sieves or with only one type of molecular sieve. MMMs of the present invention are suitable for a wide range of gas, vapor, and liquid separations such as alcohol/water, CO | 05-14-2009 |
20090166291 | FILTRATION OF AN AQUEOUS PROCESS STREAM IN POLYMER BASED PARTICLE PRODUCTION - Process for treating an aqueous particle dispersion containing water-insoluble polymer particles and a water-soluble dispersant, the concentration of dispersant in water being less than that of the polymer particles. The process comprises subjecting the aqueous particle dispersion to solid particle filtration and then subjecting the resulting substantially particle-free aqueous solution to membrane filtration to obtain a permeate stream of substantially purified water and a retentate stream having an increased dispersant concentration. The permeate stream can be reused and/or recycled as wash water during the solid particle filtration. The retentate stream can be recycled as aqueous dispersant for size reducing the water-insoluble polymer particles at a temperature at or above the softening point of the polymer. | 07-02-2009 |
20090188864 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MICROFILTRATION TO PERFORM CELL SEPARATION - A microfiltration apparatus and method for separating cells, such as circulating tumor cells, from a sample using a microfiltration device having a top porous membrane and a bottom porous membrane. The porous membranes are formed from parylene and assembled using microfabrication techniques. The porous membranes are arranged so that the pores in the top membrane are offset from the pores in the bottom membrane. | 07-30-2009 |
20090277835 | Method for reducing performance variability of multi-layer filters - Multi-layer membrane devices with reduced performance variability, and method of reducing performance variability of such devices. The variability is reduced by combining two or more membranes with similar pore sizes, and carefully selecting the upstream membrane based upon its performance rating, in order to control the performance of the overall device. Selective layering reduces the capacity range of the device when compared to random layering, with the mean capacity greater than overall population mean. The flux range also can be reduced, with the mean near the overall population mean. The LRV range also can be reduced, with the mean LRV near or higher than the overall population mean. | 11-12-2009 |
20100288701 | Staged Membrane System for Gas, Vapor, and Liquid Separations - The present invention involves the use of a multi-stage membrane system for gas, vapor, and liquid separations. In this multi-stage membrane system, high selectivity and high permeance or at least high selectivity polybenzoxazole membranes or cross-linked polybenzoxazole membranes are applied for a pre-membrane or both the pre-membrane and the secondary membrane. A primary membrane can be from conventional glassy polymers. This multi-stage membrane system can reduce inter-stage compression cost, increase product recovery and product purity for gas, vapor, and liquid separations. It can also save the cost compared to the system using all the high cost polybenzoxazole membranes or cross-linked polybenzoxazole membranes. | 11-18-2010 |
20100320148 | DEHYDRATING SYSTEM AND DEHYDRATING METHOD - A dehydrating system using multiple water separation membranes aims to prevent damage to the water separation membrane units and also to take appropriate measures against decrease in water permeation rate of the water separation membranes. Provided is a dehydrating system ( | 12-23-2010 |
20110139716 | Method and Apparatus for Generating Fresh Water, and Method and Apparatus for Desalinating Sea Water - An object is to provide a fresh water generating method that is capable of efficiently producing purified water, such as fresh water, from unpurified water, such as sea water. Provided is a fresh water generating method for generating fresh water by way of reverse osmosis membrane filtration, which includes mixing sea water with low salt concentration water having a salt concentration lower than sea water to produce mixed water, and subjecting the mixed water prepared by the mixing to reverse osmosis membrane filtration, thereby generating fresh water. | 06-16-2011 |
20110155666 | METHOD AND SYSTEM USING HYBRID FORWARD OSMOSIS-NANOFILTRATION (H-FONF) EMPLOYING POLYVALENT IONS IN A DRAW SOLUTION FOR TREATING PRODUCED WATER - A method and system using hybrid forward osmosis and nanofiltration is disclosed for treating produced water containing contaminant species. The system comprises a forward osmosis cell and a downstream nanofiltration cell. A draw solution fluid cycles between the forward osmosis cell and the nanofiltration cell. The draw solution contains polyvalent osmotic agents producing polyvalent ions in the draw solution. The passage of monovalent ions through the nanofiltration membrane is hindered due to the presence of conjugate polyvalent ions. | 06-30-2011 |
20120067820 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DYNAMIC, VARIABLE-PRESSURE, CUSTOMIZABLE, MEMBRANE-BASED WATER TREATMENT FOR USE IN IMPROVED HYDROCARBON RECOVERY OPERATIONS - A method for treating seawater that includes the step of intaking water into at least one treatment block, wherein the treatment block includes a membrane pressure vessel having at least one membrane element, wherein the treatment block is configured such that the intake water is fed through the at least one membrane element of the membrane pressure vessel, is disclosed. The disclosed method further includes the steps of feeding the intake water through the membrane pressure vessel at a custom pressure based on the at least one membrane element of the membrane pressure vessel, and separating the intake water into at least an aqueous permeate stream and a concentrate reject stream; and outputting the aqueous permeate stream and the concentrate reject stream. | 03-22-2012 |
20120118824 | WATER TREATMENT APPARATUS AND WATER TREATMENT METHOD - There is provided a water treatment apparatus, including: first membrane filtration means in which a filtration membrane having an average pore diameter of 1 μm or more is used; second membrane filtration means for treating water filtered by the first membrane filtration means, by using a microfiltration membrane or ultrafiltration membrane; and reverse osmosis membrane filtration means for treating water filtered by the second membrane filtration means. In particular, there is provided a water treatment apparatus, wherein a hydrophobic polymer membrane that is not subjected to hydrophilicizing processing is used as the filtration membrane having an average pore diameter of 1 μm or more. There is also provided a water treatment method that can be implemented by these water treatment apparatuses. | 05-17-2012 |
20120261340 | PROCESS OF SUPPLYING WATER OF CONTROLLED SALINITY - A process of producing an injection water stream of controlled salinity and controlled sulfate anion content that is suitable for injection into an oil bearing formation of an oil reservoir, the process comprising the steps of: (a) feeding a source water having a total dissolved solids content in the range of 20,000 to 45,000 ppm and a sulfate anion concentration in the range of 1,000 to 4,000 ppm, preferably, 1,500 ppm to 4,000 ppm to a desalination plant that comprises a plurality of reverse osmosis (RO) membrane units and a plurality of nanofiltration (NF) membrane units wherein the source water is pressurised to a pressure in the range of 350 to 1250 psi absolute, and dividing the source water to provide a feed water for the RO membrane units (hereinafter “RO feed water”) and a feed water for the NF membrane units (hereinafter “NF feed water”); (b) if necessary, increasing the pressure of the RO feed water to a value in the range of 900 to 1250 psi absolute before introducing the RO feed water to the RO membrane units and withdrawing an RO permeate and an RO retentate from the RO membrane units wherein the RO membrane units are operated in either a single-pass, single-stage mode or in a single-pass, two-stage mode and wherein the recovery of RO permeate is in the range of 35 to 75% by volume, preferably, 35 to 60% by volume based on the volume of the RO feed water that is fed to the RO membrane units such that the RO permeate has a total dissolved solids contents of less than 250 ppm, and a sulfate anion concentration of less than 3 ppm; (c) if necessary, reducing the pressure of the NF feed water to a value in the range of 350 to 450 psi absolute before introducing the NF feed water to the NF membrane units and withdrawing an NF permeate and an NF retentate from the NF membrane units wherein the NF membrane units are operated in a single-pass, single-stage mode and wherein the NF membrane units are operated with a recovery of NF permeate in the range of 35 to 60% by volume based on the volume of the NF feed water that is fed to the NF membrane units such that the NF permeate has a total dissolved solids content in the range of 15,000 to 40,000 ppm, preferably, 15,000 to 35,000 ppm, and a sulfate anion concentration of less than 40 ppm, preferably less than 30 ppm; and (d) mixing at least a portion of the RO permeate and at least a portion of the NF permeate in a ratio in the range of 2:1 to 40:1, preferably, 4:1 to 27:1, in particular, 10:1 to 25:1 to provide an injection water having a total dissolved solids content in the range of 500 to 5,000 ppm, and a sulfate anion concentration of less than 7.5 ppm, preferably, less than 5 ppm, more preferably less than 3 ppm. | 10-18-2012 |
20130081997 | SEPARATION MEMBRANE FOR SEAWATER DESALINATION PRETREATMENT, SEAWATER DESALINATION PRETREATMENT DEVICE, SEAWATER DESALINATION APPARATUS, AND SEAWATER DESALINATION METHOD - The separation membrane for seawater desalination pretreatment is a separation membrane for seawater desalination pretreatment used in pretreatment for seawater desalination with a reverse osmosis membrane, wherein a standard flux A is 2 m/d or more, which is defined as a maximum value of a flux that can satisfy P | 04-04-2013 |
20130112618 | FILTRATION MEMBRANES, RELATED NANO AND/OR MICRO FIBERS, COMPOSITES METHODS AND SYSTEMS - Filtration membrane comprising polymeric nanofibers and/or microfibers attaching dendrimer component presenting reactive sites selective for chemicals to be filtered, and related nanofibers and microfibers, composite materials, compositions, methods and system. | 05-09-2013 |
20130118978 | COMBINED MICROFILTRATION OR ULTRAFILTRATION AND REVERSE OSMOSIS PROCESSES - A water treatment system combines a microfiltration or ultrafiltration membrane system with a downstream reverse osmosis membrane system. The MF or UF system has multiple trains of immersed membrane modules. The trains are connected to a common permeate pump. The permeate pump discharges directly into the inlet of an RO feed pump. The membrane trains are each subjected to the same suction. The permeate pumps are operated to provide the required flow to the RO feed pump at or above the minimum inlet pressure of the RO feed pump. | 05-16-2013 |
20130146536 | WATER AND OIL SEPARATION SYSTEM - A separation system includes at least a hydrocyclone and one or more membranes. In another aspect, a separation system includes a membrane having graduated and/or asymmetrical pore sizes. A further aspect of a separation system includes an inner membrane, an outer membrane and a hydrocyclonic flow between the membranes. | 06-13-2013 |
20130161256 | METHOD AND CONTROL DEVICES FOR PRODUCTION OF CONSISTENT WATER QUALITY FROM MEMBRANE-BASED WATER TREATMENT FOR USE IN IMPROVED HYDROCARBON RECOVERY OPERATIONS - A method for treating water including intaking a first amount of water into a plurality of treatment blocks, treating the first amount of water, outputting aqueous treated water streams from each of the plurality of treatment blocks, separating the aqueous treated water streams from each of the plurality of treatment blocks into aqueous permeate streams and concentrate reject streams, monitoring each of the aqueous permeate streams, controlling the operation of at least one of the plurality of treatment blocks based on predefined water-characteristic tolerances that fall within a predetermined concentration range based on the different qualities of the aqueous permeate streams, combining the aqueous permeate streams of at least two of the plurality of treatment blocks based on the identified characteristics and the predefined water-characteristic tolerances, and outputting the product water stream and the at least one concentrate reject stream. | 06-27-2013 |
20130341272 | Dewatering Systems and Methods for Biomass Concentration - Ultra-low energy membrane-based dewatering systems and methods are provided herein. Dewatering systems of the invention employ both micro-filtration and forward osmosis, and optionally employ settling, to concentrate biomass at a low concentration, such as about 0.5 g/L, to a concentration of about 50 g/L or more. | 12-26-2013 |
20140116943 | Water Purification System and Method - A water purification system has a closed water channel to circulate circulating water not containing substances causing fouling at the downstream side separated from the water to be treated with a semipermeable membrane. By performing reverse osmosis membrane treatment on the circulating water of a low concentration of organic substances after reclaiming water from the water to be treated containing organic substances to the circulating water through a forward osmosis membrane in which fouling is hard to occur, the substances causing fouling can be prevented from contacting onto the reverse osmosis membrane and thus fouling can be suppressed. | 05-01-2014 |
20140131281 | MEMBRANE FILTRATION METHOD AND MEMBRANE FILTRATION DEVICE - A membrane filtration method and membrane filtration device including a pre-treatment membrane module that filters raw water with a filtration membrane and obtains pre-treated water; a reverse osmosis membrane module that filters the pre-treated water obtained from the pre-treatment membrane module with a reverse osmosis membrane and obtains permeate and retentate; a communicating tube channel that directly joins the pre-treated water outlet of the pre-treatment membrane module and the pre-treated water inlet of the reverse osmosis membrane module; and a branch tube channel that branches from the communicating tube channel and diverts a portion of the pre-treated water flowing in the communicating tube channel from the communicating tube channel. The filtration membrane of the pre-treatment membrane module is backwashed using the pre-treated water that has been diverted by the branch tube channel. | 05-15-2014 |
20140138313 | WATER RECOVERY METHOD - A water recovery method for improving water recovery efficiency may include inflowing a low concentration solution including water into an in-series flow path. The in-series flow path may include a plurality of flow paths for a low concentration solution coupled in series. The method may additionally include inflowing a high concentration solution having the same concentration into a plurality of flow paths for a high concentration solution. Each of the plurality of flow paths for the high concentration solution may be connected to each of plurality of flow paths for the low concentration solution via a respective semipermeable membrane being interposed therebetween. | 05-22-2014 |
20140238938 | MEMBRANE BASED DESALINATION APPARATUS WITH OSMOTIC ENERGY RECOVERY AND MEMBRANE BASED DESALINATION METHOD WITH OSMOTIC ENERGY RECOVERY - An energy efficient membrane based desalination process, which utilizes an osmotically driven energy recovery sub-process. Energy recovery sub-process involves the extraction of water from low salinity first aqueous solution by using a high salinity content, pressurized second aqueous solution to draw the water from first aqueous solution across a semi-permeable membrane. High salinity content, pressurized second solution can be used to generate osmotic pressure on the low salinity content first solution to drive water from first solution to the second solution with respect to chemical potential differences. The process also harvests the Gibbs free energy of mixing in terms of pressure conservation in the second solution, while the volume of second solution is increasing by the drawn water from the first solution. | 08-28-2014 |
20140251908 | DIALYSIS TREATMENT DEVICES FOR REMOVING UREA - Dialysis treatment devices and methods for removing urea from dialysis waste streams are provided. In a general embodiment, the present disclosure provides a dialysis treatment device including: 1) a first filter having a filtration membrane, 2) a urea removal unit having urease and in fluid communication with the first filter, and 3) a second filter having an ion rejection membrane and in fluid communication with the first filter and the urea removal unit. | 09-11-2014 |
20140374352 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR TREATING FLUID MIXTURES INCLUDING AQUEOUS AND ORGANIC PHASES - Systems and methods are disclosed for separating a continuous aqueous phase and a discontinuous organic phase from a mixture containing both phases. | 12-25-2014 |
20150014248 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR GENERATING STRONG BRINES - Methods and systems for generating strong brines are disclosed in which a feed stream and a draw inlet stream are passed through a forward osmosis membrane to create a concentrate and a draw outlet stream, the draw outlet stream is passed through a reverse osmosis membrane to create a reverse osmosis permeate flow and a reverse osmosis retentate flow, the reverse osmosis retentate flow is passed through a first nanofiltration membrane to create a first nanofiltration permeate flow and a first nanofiltration retentate flow; and the first nanofiltration retentate flow is passed through a second nanofiltration membrane to create a second nanofiltration permeate flow and a second nanofiltration retentate flow. In some embodiments, the process is repeated through a third nanofiltration membrane. The process may be repeated through a third nanofiltration membrane. | 01-15-2015 |
20150360183 | BIOMIMETIC MEMBRANES AND USES THEREOF - A liquid membrane system is disclosed in the form of a biochannel containing bulk liquid membrane (BLM), biochannel containing emulsion liquid membrane (ELM), and biochannel containing supported (immobilised) liquid membrane (SLM), or a combination thereof, wherein said liquid membrane system is based on vesicles formed from amphiphilic compounds such as lipids forming a bilayer wherein biochannels have been incorporated and wherein said vesicles further contain a stabilising oil phase. The uses of the membrane system include water extraction from liquid aqueous media by forward osmosis, e.g. for desalination of salt water. | 12-17-2015 |
20150376034 | MULTI-STAGE REVERSE OSMOSIS MEMBRANE SYSTEM AND OPERATION METHOD THEREOF - A quality of treated water is improved without loss of stability in multi-stage reverse osmosis membrane treatment. Raw water in a raw water tank | 12-31-2015 |
20160038880 | ADVANCEMENTS IN OSMOTICALLY DRIVEN MEMBRANE SYSTEMS INCLUDING LOW PRESSURE CONTROL - An example water purification system includes a forward osmosis module, a reverse osmosis module, a pump powered by an electric motor, and a pressure sensor. The forward osmosis module may receive a feed stream and a draw stream, and may produce an intermediate product stream. The intermediate product stream may be pressurized by a pump and provided to the reverse osmosis module. The reverse osmosis module may generate a product stream and return the draw stream to the forward osmosis module. The pressure sensor may monitor the pressure of the intermediate product stream, and the pressure may be used to determine the speed of the electric motor. | 02-11-2016 |
20160051944 | SOLVENT AND ACID STABLE MEMBRANES, METHODS OF MANUFACTURE THEREOF AND METHODS OF USE THEREOF INTER ALIA FOR SEPARATING METAL IONS FROM LIQUID PROCESS STREAMS - Solvent and acid stable ultrafiltration and nanofiltration membranes including a non-cross-linked base polymer having reactive pendant moieties, the base polymer being modified by forming a cross-linked skin onto a surface thereof, the skin being formed by a cross-linking reaction of reactive pendant moieties on the surface with an oligomer or another polymer as well as methods of manufacture and use thereof, including, inter alia separating metal ions from liquid process streams. | 02-25-2016 |
20170232392 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR OFFSHORE DESALINATION AND/OR OIL RECOVERY | 08-17-2017 |