In summary, the disclosure provides certain membranes useful as filter materials in the removal of metal ions, metal particulates, and/or organic contaminants from liquid compositions, in particular liquid compositions used in the microelectronic device industry. The membranes of the disclosure are porous membranes comprised of poly(quinoline) polymers. Advantageously, the poly(quinoline) membranes are thermally stable and hydrolytically stable and can thus be cleaned between uses using acidic material such as dilute hydrochloric acid, without suffering from significant degradation. The poly(quinoline) polymers can be designed to be soluble in certain solvents, thus enabling the manufacture of the corresponding porous membranes by immersion-casting techniques.

In summary, the disclosure provides certain membranes useful as filter materials in the removal of metal ions, metal particulates, and/or organic contaminants from liquid compositions, in particular liquid compositions used in the microelectronic device industry. The membranes of the disclosure are porous membranes comprised of poly(quinoline) polymers. Advantageously, the poly(quinoline) membranes are thermally stable and hydrolytically stable and can thus be cleaned between uses using acidic material such as dilute hydrochloric acid, without suffering from significant degradation. The poly(quinoline) polymers can be designed to be soluble in certain solvents, thus enabling the manufacture of the corresponding porous membranes by immersion-casting techniques.

Methods of producing multiple protein products from blood-based materials including alpha-1-proteinase inhibitor, gamma globulin, albumin, and other proteins are described herein. The inventive methods include steps of fractionation that utilize a combination of salt and organic solvent. Advantageously, the inventive methods are simple and produce alpha-1-proteinase inhibitor, gamma globulin, albumin, and other proteins in high yields. The sequence of process steps can be selected to obtain multiple products from various in-process materials, such as supernatants, pastes, chromatography flow-though, and chromatography washes.

The invention relates to 100% renewably-powered desalination/water purification stations for universal applications, the station is disruptive, scalable, amphibious and deportable to seawater, brackish or spill oil sites for simple wave-powered and autonomous operations, the station has a mooring assembly with pumping-purification-delivery subsystems powered by wave and solar energies, the pumping subsystems has the simplest, most efficient wave push/pull pump mechanisms powered by amplified wave centrifugal forces , the mechanical purifications has turbine filters, reverse-osmosis filters, forward-osmosis filters and relief valves to backwash buildups without releasing brine, release water through collecting spill oil, the solar thermal purifications are provided with distilling processes under vaccine conditions, the delivery subsystems with wave turbines and solar panels for generating electricity, propellering and transferring the stations for delivering fresh waters to destinations under GPS guide with the lowest LCOW.

The present disclosure relates to systems and methods for electrically conductive membrane separation from a mixture solution via membrane nanofiltration, electro-filtration, or electro-extraction by: generating an electric field at the membrane filter, holding the membrane filter at a constant electric potential, or driving a constant current through the membrane filter; feeding a mixture solution through the membrane nanofiltration system; and separating a component from the mixture solution into a permeate solution.

A water treatment system 100 includes: a filtration device 16 that includes an RO membrane element 12 and an NF membrane element 14, and treats raw water containing sodium chloride by the RO membrane element 12 and the NF membrane element 14 to generate concentrated raw water; and an electrolytic device 18 that is disposed downstream of the filtration device 16 and electrolyzes the concentrated raw water to generate water containing sodium hypochlorite.

A reverse osmosis arrangement is described, the first chamber (5) having a first port (7) and a second port (8) and the second chamber (6) being connected to a permeate outlet (9), wherein the first port (7) is connected to a first pump (13). Such a reverse osmosis arrangement should be operated with high efficiency. To this end the second port (8) is connected to a second pump (14).

A method of concentrating lithium containing solutions includes inputting a feed brine solution to an initial separation stage, the feed brine solution including lithium sulfate and one or more of sodium sulfate, potassium sulfate, calcium sulfate, and sodium chloride dissolved in water. In the initial separation stage, the feed brine solution is introduced to a pre-treatment membrane at a pressure that is less than the osmotic pressure of the feed brine solution. An initial permeate that passes through the pre-treatment membrane becomes the feed to a final separation stage, and an initial retentate that does not pass through the pre-treatment membrane includes a precipitate of at least one of the salts other than lithium sulfate. In the final separation stage, the initial permeate is introduced to a nanofiltration membrane at a pressure that is less than the osmotic pressure of the initial permeate. A final retentate that does not pass through the nanofiltration membrane is combined with the initial retentate to obtain a product solution having a higher concentration of dissolved lithium sulfate than the feed brine solution.

Described herein are water desalination membranes and methods of desalinating water. Sulfonated poly(arylene ether) polymers are also disclosed, including those comprising one or more sulfonate groups at various points along the polymer chain. The polymers may be used as at least a portion of a water desalination membrane. The polymers described herein are useful for preventing transport of aqueous ionic species (e.g., Na.sup.+ and Cl.sup.−) across a membrane made from the polymers while allowing water to pass. Chlorine-stable polymers are described, as well as polymers exhibiting good performance for rejecting monovalent cations in the presence of polyvalent cations.

A system for treating a tetraalkylammonium hydroxide-containing liquid having a high-pressure type reverse osmosis membrane device concentrating a liquid to be treated containing tetraalkylammonium hydroxide at a concentration side, and a line for supplying the concentrated liquid to be treated by the reverse osmosis membrane device to an evaporator further concentrating the concentrated liquid to be treated.