A hollow fiber membrane cartridge according to an aspect of the present invention includes a plurality of hollow fiber membranes and a body portion in which the plurality of hollow fiber membranes are arranged, and above which and below which mesh portions are formed, respectively, wherein the mesh portion includes a plurality of joints and a window formed to be surrounded by the plurality of joints, and a radius of curvature of the joint is 1 to 7 times a diameter of the hollow fiber membrane.

System and method for a urine and wastewater treatment are described. The urine and wastewater treatment system can include a tank configured to receive liquid waste (102), an air blower (114) configured to blow air into the liquid waste to reduce the density of the liquid waste and to generate crossflow, and a filtration unit comprising an ultra-filtration stage (104) comprising a first permeate outlet and a first concentrate outlet and a reverse osmosis stage (112) comprising a second permeate outlet and a second concentrate outlet. The reverse osmosis stage is configured to receive a first permeate from the ultra-filtration stage.

A membrane filter for submerged operation for filtering a liquid, the membrane filter including membrane units and a gas distribution system for distributing a gas to the membrane units and flushing the membrane units, wherein each of the membrane units includes a respective gas inlet opening and at least one membrane element, the at least one membrane element including membranes for filtering a liquid permeate from the liquid, a permeate collection cavity connected to permeate sides of the membranes, and a permeate outlet configured to drain the permeate from the permeate collection cavity, the gas distribution system including exactly one gas outlet for each of the membrane units, the exactly one gas outlet configured to exhaust the gas from the gas distribution system into a respective gas inlet opening of each of the membrane units.

Hydrogen generation assemblies and methods of generating hydrogen are disclosed. In some embodiments, the method may include receiving a feed stream in a fuel processing assembly of the hydrogen generation assembly; and generating a product hydrogen stream in the fuel processing assembly from the received feed stream. Generating a product hydrogen stream may, in some embodiments, include generating an output stream in a hydrogen generating region from the received feed stream, and generating the product hydrogen stream in a purification region from the output stream. The method may additionally include receiving the generated product hydrogen stream in a buffer tank of the hydrogen generation assembly; and detecting pressure in the buffer tank via a tank sensor assembly. The method may further include stopping generation of the product hydrogen stream in the fuel processing assembly when the detected pressure in the buffer tank is above a predetermined maximum pressure.

Provided is a water treatment module including a bundle of hollow fiber membranes that includes a treatment portion extending between bottom and top ends and at least one gas diffuser. The membranes may be gas permeable and water impermeable. At least one end of the hollow fiber membranes is linked to a source of biofilm growth-supporting gas (BGSG) and configured to permit inlet of said BGSG into the hollow fiber membranes. Also provided herein are devices, systems and methods making use of the module.

An object of the present invention is to provide a water treatment system in which explosions can be prevented even when filtering water to be treated that is able to generate flammable gas. A water treatment system according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a water-to-be-treated tank which stores water to be treated, a crossflow-type filtration membrane module which filters the water to be treated, a supply passage through which the water to be treated is supplied to the filtration membrane module from the water-to-be-treated tank by using a supply pump, and a recirculation passage through which the water to be treated is recirculated from the filtration membrane module to the water-to-be-treated tank. The supply passage is provided with an aspirator which mixes a gas with the supplied water to be treated, the gas being recirculated through the recirculation passage to the water-to-be-treated tank together with the water to be treated. The water-to-be-treated tank has an upper space provided above the liquid surface of the stored water to be treated, the upper space being hermetically filled with an inert gas. The water-to-be-treated tank is further provided with a gas transport passage through which the inert gas is supplied from the upper space to the aspirator.

A filter unit according to the present invention includes a plurality of filtration modules and a plurality of air bubble generation modules. Each filtration module includes a plurality of hollow fiber membranes extending in an up-down direction and arranged side by side in a curtain shape and a pair of holding members to which top and bottom ends of the hollow fiber membranes are fixed. The air bubble generation modules discharge bubbles toward the hollow fiber membranes. The filtration modules are arranged in parallel at intervals. each air bubble generation module has a discharge port that is disposed between lower holding members of a pair of adjacent filtration modules and above bottom ends of the lower holding members.

Disclosed are system and method for filtration which can minimize the contamination of the filtering membrane through a pretreatment and perform the pretreatment and the filtration with a filtering membrane in a single filtering unit so that any need for separate and additional space and facility for the pretreatment can be obviated. The system for filtration of the present invention comprises a fine bubble supplier for providing fine bubbles into the feed water. The pretreatment is performed by supplying the feed water to be treated into the filtering unit through a dynamic filtration layer which is formed in the filtering unit as the fine bubbles rise.

A guide member for directing gas bubble flow along a member surface, the guide member having first and second side edges defining a channel for gas bubbles to flow along, the channel having an open bottom end through which the gas bubbles can enter the channel and an open top end through which the bubbles can exit the channel, and a diverting means adjacent the channel bottom end arranged to direct at least some of the incident gas bubbles in a first direction towards the channel bottom end. A membrane module assembly and a membrane filter system including the guide member.

A membrane filter module configured to treat a liquid contained in a tank at an ambient pressure. The module may have a header, with a bundle containing a plurality of substantially vertical hollow fiber membranes, wherein a lower end of each hollow fiber membrane is fixed in the header. The module may also have a gasification device adapted to periodically generate a gaseous bubble and configured to release the gaseous bubble within the bundle. The module may further have an enclosure that substantially surrounds the bundle that extends from a lower region to an upper region of the membrane bundle, wherein the enclosure is configured to retain the liquid introduced into the enclosure such that the liquid surrounds the membrane bundle. The gaseous bubble has a cross-sectional area that corresponds with a cross-sectional area of the enclosure, such that the cross-sectional area of the gaseous bubble occupies substantially the entire cross-sectional area of the enclosure as it flows along the bundle.