Provided are electrodialysis systems for removing silica from a desalinated water stream and methods for removing silica from a desalinated water stream. For example, described are bipolar membrane electrodialysis devices for removing silica from water comprising one or more anion exchange membranes; one or more bipolar membranes; and a pair of electrodes comprising a positive electrode and a negative electrode. Also described are electrodialysis systems comprising: one or more electrodialysis devices for the removal of dissolved ions and one or more bipolar membrane electrodialysis devices, wherein a product inlet stream of the one or more bipolar membrane electrodialysis devices comprises the product outlet stream of the one or more electrodialysis devices.

Provided are electrodialysis systems for removing ions from heavy ends. The electrodialysis systems include an electrodialysis device comprising a brine inlet stream, a heavy ends inlet stream, a brine outlet stream, and a product outlet stream, wherein the brine outlet stream comprises more acetic acid than the brine inlet stream, and the product outlet stream comprises no more than 10% the amount of ions relative to an amount of ions in the heavy ends inlet stream.

The present teaching relates to method, system, medium, and implementations for storage management. A hash table is constructed, having an index file having one or more slots, each of which includes one or more buckets. Each bucket stores one or more types of records, including a direct record, an indirect record, and a forwarding record. A direct record stores data directly in a bucket of a slot of the index file. When a storage request is received related to some relevant data, the request is handled based on the constructed hash table.

A water treatment device includes a sub-reverse osmosis membrane device having a primary casing and a primary reverse osmosis membrane dividing the primary casing into a primary liquid passing part and a primary permeating part; a low pressure water feed pump feeding seawater to the primary liquid passing part at a pressure that is equal to or lower than an osmotic pressure of the seawater; a main reverse osmosis membrane device having a secondary casing and a secondary reverse osmosis membrane dividing an inside of the secondary casing into a secondary liquid passing part and a secondary permeating part; and a high pressure water feed pump feeding a primary treated liquid, which is a resultant product of the seawater passing through and flowing out of the primary liquid passing part, to the secondary liquid passing part at a pressure higher than an osmotic pressure of the primary treated liquid.

Improved reverse osmosis (RO) systems include at least first and second stages wherein each stage has at least one RO membrane, each stage has a feed stream inlet, a permeate stream outlet, and a concentrate stream outlet, the feed stream inlet of the second stage is coupled to the concentrate stream outlet of the first stage, the second pressure is greater than the first pressure, and pressure exchangers associated with each of the first and second stages are configured to recover energy from the second stage concentrate stream. The systems include M reverse osmosis membranes in the first stage and N reverse osmosis membranes in the second stage, wherein M≧N. The first pressure and second pressure are configured so that spatial variance in flux of the first stage permeate stream relative to flux of the second stage permeate stream is minimized.

An apparatus and a method for backwashing filter membrane modules arranged in parallel in the form of a plurality of module rows within a module rack and supplyable with raw water through supply/drain ports at each end face via respectively associated supply/drain lines, and each including a drain port on a wall side for the filtrate, to which a filtrate collection line is connected for draining the filtrate, wherein valve means are provided to control at least one filtration and backwashing mode, wherein, in the backwashing mode, a supply-side control valve of the first supply/drain lines carrying raw water of a module row is closed, but an associated drain-side control valve of the other supply/drain line of one module row serving to drain backwashing water is open, whereas the remaining supply-side control valves in the supply line carrying raw water of the remaining module rows are open, to ensure backwashing of the one module row of the module rack by the filtrate simultaneously produced by the other module rows.

Installation for the pressurised filtration of liquid with a view to producing drinking water, comprising at least one membrane-based drinking-water production unit (MPU), each MPU comprising: a plurality of filtration blocks each containing a bundle of pressure tubes mounted in parallel, each pressure tube accommodating at least two membrane-based filtration modules with spiral membranes or hollow-fibre membranes mounted in series, means (20) for feeding the liquid that is to be filtered, means for removing the filtered liquid, and means (30) for removing the concentrate, characterised in that the membranes of the filtration modules are of at least two different types selected from the group consisting of reverse-osmosis membranes and low-pressure reverse-osmosis membranes (4-6), on the one hand, and nanofiltration membranes (1-3) on the other hand, and in that at least one MPU comprises means (21-26) making it possible to alter the order in which the blocks of pressure tubes that it groups together are supplied with fluid. The method consists in supplying the filtration blocks of at least one MPU in a first order of supply in which the tubes containing nanofiltration membranes are at the head of the MPU and then in supplying the pressure tubes in a second order of supply in which the pressure tubes containing reverse-osmosis membranes or low-pressure reverse-osmosis membranes are at the head of the MPU.

The present disclosure provides for a continuous membrane separator bypass system and a continuous filtration separator system and methods of using the systems in the separation of liquid-liquid mixtures and filtration of process liquids. The methods and apparatus are useful for the production of fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals, particularly using Integrated Continuous Manufacturing (ICM), but can also be integrated with other manufacturing processes, such as batch and semi-continuous processes.

A turbocharger includes a turbocharger housing having an impeller housing comprising a circular cross-section. A main nozzle is disposed within the turbocharger housing communicating a first portion of a fluid stream to a first volute. A first auxiliary channel and a first auxiliary nozzle communicating a second portion of the fluid stream to the first volute. The first auxiliary nozzle is downstream of the main nozzle. A second auxiliary channel and a second auxiliary nozzle communicate a third portion of the fluid stream to the first volute. The second auxiliary nozzle is downstream of the first auxiliary nozzle. A valve assembly is selectively coupling the first auxiliary channel to the first auxiliary nozzle and the second auxiliary channel to the second auxiliary nozzle.

Separation of a gas mixture comprising first and second gases may be improved using two cascaded stages of gas separation membrane modules that includes the additional techniques of cooling the feed gas stream that is fed to the feed stage and using a portion of the feed stage retentate as a sweep gas on the feed stage.