The treatment system provides a feature that may reduce cost of the electrochemical plating process by reusing the virgin makeup solution in the spent electrochemical plating bath. The treatment system provides a rotating filter shaft which receives the spent electrochemical plating bath and captures the additives and by-products created by the additives during the electrochemical plating process. To capture the additives and the by-products, the rotating filter shaft includes one or more types of membranes. Materials such as semi-permeable membrane are used to capture the used additives and by-products in the spent electrochemical plating bath. The treatment system may be equipped with an electrochemical sensor to monitor a level of additives in the filtered electrochemical plating bath.

A method comprising feeding MF feedstock to a cross-flow microfilter. The MF feedstock includes at least 5% protein solids and has a conductivity of less than 10 mS/cm.

A water purification system utilizes an ionomer membrane and mild vacuum to draw water from source water through the membrane. A water source may be salt water or a contaminated water source. The water drawn through the membrane passes across the condenser chamber to a condenser surface where it is condensed into purified water. The condenser surface may be metal or any other suitable surface and may be flat or pleated. In addition, the condenser surface may be maintained at a lower temperature than the water on the water source side of the membrane. The ionomer membrane may be configured in a cartridge, a pleated or flat plate configuration. A latent heat loop may be configured to carry the latent heat of vaporization from the condenser back to the water source side of the ionomer membrane. The source water may be heated by a solar water heater.

A heat exchanger for an oxygenator device has multiple hollow fiber membranes that each have a hollow portion through which a heat medium passes, wherein the fibers are wound as a cylinder body. Each of the hollow fiber membranes follows a path between opposing ends of the cylinder body which is tilted with respect to a central axis of the cylinder body and is wound around the central axis of the cylinder body, wherein a tilt angle θ with respect to the central axis ranges from 22° to smaller than 67°, and wherein a constituent material of each of the hollow fiber membranes has a Young's modulus E ranging from 2.6 GPa to 0.07 GPa. During winding, the hollow fiber membranes are stretched according to a stretching rate between 0.5% and 3.0% and then fixed at the ends to maintain the stretching.

An arrangement for providing sterile water for injection purposes is described. A device for heating drinking water above the boiling point, a device for maintaining a chamber inner pressure which lies below the atmospheric pressure, and an electronic controller are provided, and the chamber is equipped with at least one membrane which is impermeable for liquids and a film or plate at a distance from the membrane, wherein steam which is permeated through the membrane is condensed on the film of plate. The membrane and the film or plate form a module, and the condensed water can be removed from the chamber via an outlet as sterile water for injection purposes.

A distillation device and method of manufacturing a distillation device is disclosed. The distillation device includes at least one spiral wound membrane distillation (MD) unit. The spiral wound MD unit includes a perforated center tube concentric to a cylindrical housing and a plurality of effects spirally wound around the center tube. Each of the effects include a vapor permeable membrane, a feed spacer disposed on the vapor permeable membrane, a permeate spacer, and a heat exchange film. The permeate spacer is disposed between the vapor permeable membrane and the heat exchange film. Distillation of a feed fluid by the plurality of effects deposits a condensate fluid into the center tube.

A desalination system, including a membrane distillation portion, a solar power concentration portion, and a thermal vapor compression portion operationally connected to the membrane distillation portion and to the solar power concentration portion. The membrane distillation portion includes a first vessel having a first portion and a second portion separated by a hydrophobic membrane operationally connected therebetween and oriented to pass water from the first portion to the second portion, wherein the hydrophobic membrane further comprises a hydrophilic membrane and an air blocking layer connected to the hydrophilic membrane and disposed in the first portion, a vacuum gap adjacent the hydrophobic membrane and disposed in the second portion, a first fluid inlet and a first fluid outlet operationally connected to the first portion, and a second fluid inlet and a second fluid outlet operationally connected to the second portion. The solar power concentration portion includes a pump having a pump outlet and a pump inlet operationally connected to a water line and to the vacuum gap, a linear Fresnel mirror collector for collecting and focusing sunlight, and an outlet line operationally connected to the pump outlet and positioned to receive focused sunlight from linear Fresnel mirror collector. The thermal vapor compression portion includes an ejector having an ejector inlet portion and an ejector outlet portion, wherein the ejector inlet portion is operationally connected to the outlet line and to the vacuum gap, a second vessel fluidically connected to the outlet portion and further including a heat exchanger operationally connected to the ejector outlet portion and to a water pipe, a feed spray operationally connected to the second outlet and positioned to spray into the heat exchanger, and a collection portion for receiving concentrated feed spray. The heat exchanger receives desalinated water from the ejector and from the feed spray. The water line carries desalinated water from the heat exchanger. The first outlet passes concentrated brine, and the first inlet receives feed water to be desalinated.

A regenerable organic contaminant controller includes a carbon hollow fiber module that includes a passage between an inlet and an outlet, on an opposite end of the carbon hollow fiber module from the inlet, such that organic contaminants in contaminated air flowing through the passage are desorbed into pores of the carbon hollow fiber module. The regenerable organic contaminant controller also includes wires coupled to the inlet of the carbon hollow fiber module and to the outlet of the carbon hollow fiber module. The wires heat the carbon hollow fiber module based on a flow of electricity through the wires. The heat causes release of the organic contaminants from the pores of the carbon hollow fiber module.

A membrane evaporative condenser (MEC) includes a repeating sequence of channels for evaporation and/or condensation are arranged, each sequence of channels includes a condensation channel for condensation of a vapor to a liquid, an evaporation channel, and zero to one hundred evaporation-condensation channels. The condensation channel has walls of a non-permeable material which exterior to the condensation channel share the wall with a liquid evaporative medium (LEM) conduit that contains a LEM. The LEM conduit includes a moisture transfer membrane (MTM), where the LEM can evaporate into an evaporation channel or an evaporation-condensation channel that can amplify the effect of the heat transfer for additional mass transfer.

A technique to desalinate seawater using melanin-concentrated solar energy wherein the melanin is extracted from a local isolate Aspergillus niger. A device consists of two fixed upper and lower containers with same volume of seawater in both, with or without melanin powder dissolved in the lower container at rate of 0.17 gm of melanin powder per 10 ml of water. The device is put outdoors under direct sunlight during daytime, circular water droplets free of salt starts to appear on the external bottom of upper container. Water droplets are collected by a sterile glass rod, pH of droplets water is about 7.1. Yield of fresh water is approximately 10 ml droplets water from 600 ml seawater per hour; after 24 hours day and night incubation, seawater in the upper container dries out leaving salt crystals. Yield of 1000 m3 seawater is 100 m3 freshwater (1000 L seawater yield 100 L freshwater).