The invention is an improved method of making a carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membrane in which a polyimide precursor polymer is pyrolyzed to form a carbon molecular sieve membrane by heating, in a furnace, said polyimide precursor polymer to a final pyrolysis temperature of 600 C to 700 C at a pyrolysis heating rate of 3 to 7 C/minute from 400 C to the final pyrolysis temperature, the final pyrolysis temperature being held for a pyrolysis time of at most 60 minutes in a non-oxidizing atmosphere. In a particular embodiment, the cooling rate from the pyrolysis temperature is accelerated by methods to remove heat. The CMS membranes have shown an improved combination of selectivity and permeance as well as being particularly suitable to separate gases in gas streams such methane from natural gas, oxygen from air and ethylene or propylene from light hydrocarbon streams.

Mesoporous membranes have shown promising separation performance with a potential to lower the energy consumption, leading to a dramatic cost reduction. Recently, an extensive effort has been made on the design of membranes which brought a significant progress toward the synthesis of well-defined porous morphologies, most of which synthesized by surfactant-template methodology. Currently, the most well-designed state-of-the-art membranes using this technique are made from metals, polymers, carbon, silica, etc. In the present invention, we demonstrate mesoporous calcium-silicate particles having superior separation capacity and optimal permeability, thereby leading to reduced energy consumption for selective separation of gases/liquids and/or the combination thereof. We explore various methods to improve the calcium-silicate membranes properties by tuning pore density during the synthesis/aging process, while favoring the formation of uniformly distributed nanopores. Lowering particle density by controlling calcium to silicon ratio along with optimizing the surface area are essential in achieving our objective.

When the porous membrane, which has two surfaces of a surface A and a surface C, is equally divided in the thickness direction of the porous membrane into three layers of a first layer including the surface A, a second layer that is a central layer in the thickness direction, and a third layer including the surface C, an average trunk size of the third layer is larger than an average trunk size of the second layer, and when a continuous layer from the surface A having a thickness of 10 ?m in the first layer is a first layer component, a continuous layer component having a thickness of 10 ?m and an average trunk size smaller than an average trunk size of the first layer component is present in the first layer, the second layer, and the third layer other than the first layer component.

A method is disclosed for forming a microporous membrane that incorporates an additive having low water solubility at the membrane's active surface from a precipitation fluid. The incorporated additive at the membrane's active surface can improve one or more of the membrane's hydrophilicity, wettability, anti-fouling behavior, blood compatibility, and stability over long periods of use or repetitive use. The microporous membrane with this modified active surface can be a hollow fiber, flat sheet, or other self-supporting shape. The microporous membranes can be used for membrane filtering or a solute and/or solvent exchange process, which involve contacting aqueous-based fluid or blood with the microporous membrane, such processes for dialysis, blood oxygenation, or blood separation filtering, or other processes.

The invention relates to a catalytic activation layer for use in oxygen-permeable membranes, which can comprise at least one porous structure formed by interconnected ceramic oxide particles that conduct oxygen ions and electronic carriers, where the surface of said particles that is exposed to the pores is covered with nanoparticles made from a catalyst, the composition of which corresponds to the following formula: A.sub.1-x-yB.sub.xC.sub.yO.sub.R where: A can be selected from Ti, Zr, Hf, lanthanide metals and combinations thereof; B and C are metals selected from Al, Ga, Y, Se, B, Nb, Ta, V, Mo, W, Re, Mn, Sn, Pr, Sm, Tb, Yb, Lu and combinations of same; and A must always be different from B. 0.01<x<0.5; 0<y<0.3.

This invention relates generally to a chitosan-graphene oxide membrane and process of making the same. The nanocomposite membrane can filter water and remove contaminants without fouling like other commercially-available polymer-based water filters. The membrane can be used as a flat sheet filter or can be engineered in a spiral filtration module. The membrane is scalable and tunable for many water contaminants including pharmaceuticals, pesticides, herbicides, and other organic chemicals. The membrane uses chitosan, which is low-cost, renewable biopolymer typically considered to be a waste product and the second most abundant biopolymer on Earth, thus making the membrane an environmentally-friendly product choice.

The invention relates to a power distribution system (1), especially a Power-over-Ethernet system, comprising at least one dominant sensor, which may be located within a powered device (4) like a lighting device, and at least one non-dominant sensor, which may be located within another powered device (4), wherein the power distribution system is adapted such that in a system low power mode the at least one dominant sensor (6) consumes power provided by a power providing unit (3) and the at least one non-dominant sensor (6) does not consume the provided power and that the power distribution system (1) switches from the system low power mode to a system high power mode, if the at least one dominant sensor (6) has sensed an event. Since in the system low power mode the at least one non-dominant sensor does not consume power, the power consumption can be reduced.

A coated, thin-film composite membrane includes a porous support and a polyamide barrier layer in contact with the porous support. A fouling-resistant and antimicrobial layer of star polymers is in contact with the polyamide barrier layer. The star polymers included hydrophilic arms of about 40 mol % to about 80 mol % of neutral hydrophilic moieties, and about 60 mol % to about 20 mol % of antimicrobial functional groups.

A method for filtering gas includes providing a gas filtration structure, and the gas filtration structure includes a porous support and a first gas filtration film pair on the porous support, wherein the first gas filtration film pair includes a first hydrogen permeation layer and a first calcinated layered double hydroxide (c-LDH) layer, and the first hydrogen permeation layer is disposed between the porous support and the first c-LDH layer. The method also provides a hydrogen-containing mixture gas over the first gas filtration film pair, and collects hydrogen under the porous support.

A method is disclosed for preventing carbon nanotube degradation in ionizable environments. The method includes immersing a porous thin-film nanotube (CNT)/polymer composite Joule heating element in an ionizable environment; and applying an alternating current at a frequency of at least 100 Hz to the porous thin-film nanotube (CNT)/polymer composite Joule heating element in the ionizable environment.