2772 results about "Membrane filter" patented technology

A method and apparatus for the transcutaneous monitoring of blood gases generally comprises a blood gas data acquisition device, a vacuum source and a blood gas transducer unit. The blood gas transducer unit is adapted for application to a patient's skin and administration of a local vacuum at the area of patient application. It further comprises an electrochemical blood gas transducer, well known to those of ordinary skill in the art, which is disposed entirely within the local vacuum at the area of patient application. The vacuum source is placed in fluid communication with the blood gas transducer unit, through a hydrophobic membrane filter for safety purposes, in order to induce a condition of hyperperfusion in the locality of the electrochemical blood gas transducer. Under the control of a microcontroller, or equivalent means, the blood gas acquisition device is then utilized to capture a measure of skin surface oxygen or carbon dioxide pressure. The microcontroller can then utilize this measure to arrive at an estimate of arterial partial pressure of oxygen or carbon dioxide, accordingly. Because vacuum induced perfusion produces the requisite condition of hyperperfusion without local heating and, therefore, without acceleration of the local metabolic function, the present invention results in more accurate than previously available estimates of partial pressure blood gas pressures and does so while eliminating a significant risk for injury to the patient.

A membrane filter apparatus includes a membrane unit 50 composed of an array of membrane elements 51 disposed within a treatment tank 31. A skirt element 71 is disposed at a bottom portion of the membrane unit and an aerator 61 is disposed under the skirt. A partition is also disposed at the bottom of the membrane unit forming compartments within the skirt element. The gas bubbles discharged from the aerator increase their rising force upon entry into gaps between the membranes. Because of the arrangement of the partition within the skirt element the flow rate of bubbles along the opposite side edge portions of the membrane unit can be increased having the advantage of cleaning the entire surface of each membrane, thereby preventing clogging by sludge, SS, colloid, etc. within the gaps between the membranes. Therefore, filtration can be maintained over a longer period of time and the power required for filtration can be reduced, as well as, the frequency of manual periodic cleaning, chemical cleaning, etc.

A filtration system is provided with hollow membrane filter elements operable to remove solids, particulate and colloidal matter from a process fluid. Acoustic, vibration and ultrasonic energy may be used to clean exterior portions of the hollow membrane filter elements to allow substantially continuous filtration of process fluids. The filtration system may be satisfactorily used with process fluids having a relatively high concentrations of solids, particulate and colloidal matter.

A method and process for the treatment of wastewater containing phosphorous and nitrogen. The wastewater is first anaerobically treated to produce an anaerobic effluent from which insoluble organic carbon is separated to form a sludge rich in organic carbon that is used as a substrate during anoxic treatment of the wastewater by de-nitrifying phosphorous accumulating organisms (DPAO's) and ordinary de-nitrifying organisms. The separation of insoluble organic carbon is normally conducted using a clarifier located intermediate the anaerobic and anoxic bio-reactors. In one embodiment, the ammonia rich clarifier supernatant is directed to an aerobic reactor for nitrification and the nitrate produced is recycled to the anoxic bio-reactor. The final effluent may be membrane filtered to retain nitrifying biomass within the aerobic bio-reactor. The invention reduces overall hydraulic residence time and sludge volume, which results in a smaller, less expensive wastewater treatment system.

The invention provides parylene membrane filters, filter devices and methods of making them and using them in the mechanical separation of cells and particles by size. The provision of parylene membrane filters with high figures of merit and finely controlled hole sizes allows the separation of cells and particles in a variety of biological and other fluids according to sizes.

An apparatus using activated sludge for the removal of biological nutrients from a wastewater includes a bioreactor for containing a mixture of wastewater under treatment and activated sludge. The bioreactor is divided into a plurality of serially connected treatment zones and includes a wastewater inlet, a downstream aerobic zone and an upstream aerobic zone between the wastewater inlet and the downstream aerobic zone, the upstream and downstream aerobic zones being separated by an anoxic zone. A method for removal of nutrients from a wastewater includes providing a wastewater to an inlet of a serial, multi-zone, activated sludge bioreactor containing an activated sludge. The bioreactor has a downstream aerobic zone from which water is removed and an upstream aerobic zone between the wastewater inlet and the downstream aerobic zone, the upstream and downstream aerobic zones being separated by an anoxic zone.

The present invention provides a parylene-based membrane filter device for capturing of circulating tumor cells (CTC). The membrane filter has an array of holes having a predetermined geometric design with precisely controlled size, shape and density. In one aspect, the device has a stack of substantially parallel membrane filters with uniformly-spaced and/or monodispersed holes.

Immersed hollow-fiber membrane filtration systems sometimes encounter process problems as a result of solids accumulation in and around the hollow fibers. The solids can accumulate to the point where they begin to dewater and form a mud like substance known as sludge. In some embodiments of the invention there is provided a process for substantially preventing the accumulation of sludge build-up on membrane fibers and/or cleansing membrane fibers that have been fouled by a substantial sludge build-up. Many of these embodiments involve aerating a membrane tank in which the membrane fibers are immersed after the water level has been reduced to near the level of solids accumulation. In some embodiments of the invention, the energy released by bursting bubbles at the liquid-air interface is employed to prevent fouling of membrane fibers and/or cleanse fouled membrane fibers.

A method of cleaning a porous polymeric membrane having a feed side and a permeate side including the steps of introducing a fluid containing a cleaning agent to the permeate side of a membrane allowing the cleaning agent to contact the permeate side of the membrane for a predetermined time, and contact the pores of the membrane, or introducing a fluid containing a cleaning agent to the feed side of a membrane; applying a transmembrane pressure to force the fluid containing the cleaning agent from the feed side to the permeate side of the membrane; allowing the cleaning agent to contact the permeate side of the membrane for a predetermined time, and contact the pores of the membrane. Preferably a concentration gradient between the feed side fluid and the lumen side fluid containing the cleaning agent causes cleaning agent to diffuse into the feed side fluid. Pressure may be applied to the fluid containing a cleaning agent to dislodge, where present, dissolved and undissolved solid from the membrane pores. The pressure may be applied in a pulsed fashion, and can be by way of compressed air at a pressure not more than the membrane's bubble point. The methods of the present invention may be preceded by, or followed with a backwash.

An extraction apparatus and methods adapted to extract and preferably also isolate structures of interest from a test sample. The extraction apparatus contains a volume-dispensing mechanism that facilitates control over the injection of a sample suspected of containing a structure of interest into a filtration vessel that contains a membrane filter that associates with the structure of interest, preferably by adsorbing or binding thereto, and a collection container associated therewith. Methods of extracting, isolating, testing, and instructions regarding such methods are also included.

The technological process of treating papermaking effluent for reuse based on membrane integrating technique has membrane bioreactor, continuous membrane filter and reverse osmosis unit integrated for high efficiency treatment of papermaking effluent. The papermaking effluent treating process includes drum filtering and flocculating deposition to eliminate most suspended matter and colloid matter, anaerobic and aerobic biochemical treatment, filtering in membrane separating element, continuous membrane filtering, and treating with reverse osmosis membrane to reach the papermaking water standard. The present invention is especially suitable for treating hard-to-treat papermaking effluent.

A green tea beverage is prepared from the fresh organic green tea leaves through breaking, squeezing to obtain tea juice, filtering, fine filtering by membrane, mixing it with water in ratio of 1:(15-25),membrane filtering for removing bacteria, and aseptic canning. Its advantages are unique fragrance and high nutritive value.

Provided a method for treating hardly-decomposable-substance-containing water, in which hardly decomposable substances such as dioxins, contained in contaminated water (treatment raw water) are concentrated and rendered harmless by providing the steps of (B) adding an adsorbent to water containing a hardly decomposable substance (treatment raw water) to cause the hardly decomposable substance to be adsorbed on the adsorbent (adsorption treatment step), (C) separating a permeated liquid through a filter membrane to concentrate the adsorbent adsorbing the hardly decomposable substance (membrane filtering treatment step), and (D) chemically decomposing the hardly decomposable substance adsorbed on the concentrated adsorbent with a peroxide without any operation of desorption from the adsorbent (chemical decomposition step), and the method can be applied to water containing a reducing substance such as bisulfate that neutralize free chlorine and can render the hardly decomposable substances harmless efficiently at a low cost without being limited by properties of the hardly decomposable substances contained.

The present invention belongs to the field of bioengineering technology, and especially a kind of couple producing biological diesel oil and 1, 3-propylene glycol. The present invention features that the course of lipase catalyzed reaction between methanol or ethanol and fat to produce biological diesel oil and the course of biologically converting glycerin into 1, 3-propylene glycol are coupled via membrane filtering for simultaneous proceeding. The present invention has the effects of eliminating the suppression of short-chain alcohol and glycerin on lipase, prolonging the service life of immobilized enzyme, omitting the glycerin separating and extracting step, lowering the production cost, saving time, raising production efficiency and providing economic and feasible process for producing biological diesel oil and 1, 3-propylene glycol.

The present invention relates to a mobile water purification system employing crossflow filtration, such as reverse osmosis filtration. One embodiment of the invention discloses a mobile water purification system comprising a housing, a pump unit and a piping system for providing fluid communication between a water inlet, a pre-filtration unit, a crossflow filtration unit, a disinfection unit and an outlet for supply of purified water, wherein the pre-filtration unit comprises sediment/cartridge filtrations means and dechlorination means, the cross-flow filtration unit comprises a plurality of parallel and/or sequentially arranged membrane filters, and the piping system is reconfigurable such that the crossflow filtration unit can be bypassed. The present water purification system is adapted to be deployed in remote areas substantially anywhere in the world.

A process for preparing the common saponin of Chinese paris rhizome includes such steps as extracting, separating and purifying, and features that the extracting in alcohol, membrane filtering, resin adsorbing, resin decoloring, decoloring with activated carbon and defatting with acetone are combined. Its advantages are high extracting rate and low cost.

A macroscale, self-supporting, composite laminate sheet includes individual, layered graphene oxide sheets and a polymer in spaces between the sheets. This composite product can be fabricated by combining a suspension of individual graphene oxide sheets and a solution of polymer, passing the resulting fluid through a fluid-permeable support, and assembling the graphene oxide sheets and polymer as a laminate sheet by flow-directed assembly. The laminate is dried and released from the membrane filter as a self-supporting thin films.