A method for rapid isolation of a biological compound (e.g. protein) from an aqueous sample is described herein. The method uses a porous hydrophobic membrane that has an average pore size significantly greater than the size of the biological compound. The method permits the biological compound to attach to the membrane while the aqueous solvent rapidly moves through the membrane under the application of a vacuum. The biological compound that is attached to the membrane can be washed, optionally digested, and eluted for analysis.

Disclosed is a separation membrane cartridge-cleaning apparatus for sewage treatment process. The apparatus conveniently cleans the separation membrane cartridges, thereby improving workability, as the separation membrane cartridges mounted within the membrane separation aerobic tank of the sewage treatment process are removed which have been contaminated while performing the solid-liquid separation of the contaminants contained in the sewage, and then the cartridges are separably mounted on the cartridge-cleaning apparatus of water mill type rotatably installed within the cleaning tank containing the cleaning liquid, and thereafter, the contaminated separation membrane cartridges are immersed in the cleaning liquid and the water and air are sprayed from filter-cleaning means above the cartridges to clean the cartridges.

A reverse osmosis treatment device includes: a first pressure vessel for treating an untreated water to produce a primarily treated water and a first permeated water; a second pressure vessel for treating the primarily treated water to produce a secondarily treated water and a second permeated water; a first cleaning solution tank for storing a first cleaning solution for cleaning the first pressure vessel; and a second cleaning solution tank for storing a second cleaning solution for cleaning the second pressure vessel. Each of the first pressure vessel and the second pressure vessel has therein a reverse osmosis membrane element having a reverse osmosis membrane. The first cleaning solution tank is connected to the first concentrate outlet pipe of the first pressure vessel, and the second cleaning solution tank is connected to the inlet pipe for the primarily treated water of the second pressure vessel.

Provided are processes of removing particulate fouling from a filtration membrane or for preventing membrane fouling by particulate matter. A process capitalizes on reversal of a naturally occurring diisophoretic particle deposition to actively move particulate material away from a membrane. A process includes placing a microparticle including a salt in proximity to a membrane such that the microparticle creates a gradient generated spontaneous electric field or a gradient generated spontaneous chemiphoretic field in the solvent proximal to the membrane that actively draws charged particles away from the membrane thereby removing charged particulate matter away from the membrane or preventing its deposition.

A dosing pump (19) doses antiscalant into a membrane-based water treatment system (1). The dosing pump (19) includes a displacement body for pumping antiscalant into the membrane-based water treatment system (1) in doses. A motor drives the displacement body. A control module controls the motor. The control module is configured to vary the dosage of antiscalant pumped into the water treatment system (1) based on a temperature corrected system variable (SVTc) being based on a plurality of operating variables of the water treatment system (1).

An immersed membrane system or process may use measured or calculated process information to optimize one or more process operating parameters to improve performance or reduce operating costs. An on-line process control system or method may use the resistance in series method in operating an immersed membrane water treatment system. A process control system or process may consider resistance values and adjust operational parameters such as membrane aeration frequency factor, membrane aeration flow, permeate flux, permeation duration, backwash flow and duration, relaxation duration or maintenance or recovery chemical cleaning frequencies in order to reduce the operational costs related to membrane fouling removal.

The present invention relates to a water treatment method including: a filtration step of feeding water to be treated to a membrane filtration device having loaded therein a porous separation membrane and performing filtration treatment to obtain filtrate; a discharging step of discharging the water to be treated in the membrane filtration device, which has been separated and concentrated by the porous separation membrane; and a cleaning step of cleaning the porous separation membrane by at least one treatment of physical cleaning and chemical cleaning, in which a cycle including a combination of the filtration step, the discharging step and the cleaning step is repeated multiple times, thereby obtaining filtrate. In each cycle, the filtration step and the discharging step are repeated multiple times, and the cleaning step is then carried out.

A deposit monitoring device includes a non-permeated water line discharging non-permeated water where dissolved components and dispersed components are concentrated from water to be treated from a separation membrane device for obtaining permeated water by concentrating the dissolved components and dispersed components from water to be treated by a separation membrane; a first deposit detecting unit using part of the non-permeated water branched off as a detection liquid, and having a first separation membrane for detection in which the detection liquid is separated into permeated water for detection and non-permeated water for detection; a deposition condition altering device altering deposition conditions for deposits in the first separation membranes for detection; and first flow rate measuring devices for separated liquid detection that measure the flow rates of one or both of the permeated water for detection and the non-permeated water for detection separated by the first separation membrane for detection.

A method of preparing a 2D material (e.g. graphene or of boron nitride), the method comprising: (i) selecting a fluid comprising the 2D material dispersed in a solvent; (ii) using a filtration device to remove solvent from the fluid and increase the concentration of 2D material in the fluid, wherein the fluid suitably includes a surfactant, which may be sodium cholate or sodium dodecylbenezenesulphonate and wherein the filtration device is suitably a cross-flow filtration device.

A method for operating a membrane separation device includes (a) setting a flow amount M(t) of permeated water and extracting the permeated water from the membrane separation device by the set flow amount M(t), and (b) temporarily stopping the extracting the permeated water, when a water level of a first water tank in which the membrane separation device is immersed, a water level of a second water tank in communication with the first tank, or a water level of a third water tank receiving overflowing water from the first water tank becomes lower than a predetermined halt water level. M(t), which is the flow amount of the permeated water during a time period t, satisfies a equation M(t)=KQ(t−1), where K is a gain (K>1), and Q(t−1) is an amount of inflow of the water-to-be-treated during a time period t−1 immediately prior to the time period t.