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.

An object of the present invention is to provide a composite reverse osmosis membrane having improved water permeability and antifouling performance, and a method for producing the same. The composite reverse osmosis membrane of the present invention includes: a porous support; and a skin layer formed on a surface of the porous support. The skin layer contains a polyamide resin. The polyamide resin is a modified polyamide resin modified with an alkylenediamine derivative.

The invention is an improved method of making an improved carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membrane in which a precursor polymer (e.g., polyimide) is pyrolyzed at a pyrolysis temperature to form a CMS membrane that is cooled to ambient temperature (about 40° C. or 30° C. to about 20° C.). The CMS membrane is then reheated to a reheating temperature of at least 250° C. to 400° C. to form the improved CMS membrane. The CMS have a novel microstructure as determined by Raman spectroscopy. The improved CMS membranes have shown an improved combination of selectivity and permeance as well as stability for separating light hydrocarbon gas molecules such as C.sub.1 to C.sub.6 hydrocarbon gases (e.g., methane, ethane, propane, ethylene, propylene, butane, butylene).

Copper based nanoparticle composite compositions, methods, and systems for purification and sterilization of contaminated water are provided.

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.

The purpose is to produce a molded filter body using graphene having water passage holes with a desired size by an easy process.

A method for producing a molded filter body having a layer of graphene 2 as a filter medium, includes the steps of: forming a layer of a support 5 on a surface of graphite 1; forming support water passage holes in the layer of the support 5; peeling the layer of the support 5 from the graphite 1 in a state of attaching the layer of graphene 2 on the surface of the graphite 1 to the layer of the support 5; and holding the layer of graphene 2 by heating at a low temperature for a predetermined time in the air containing oxygen at 160 to 250° C. and forming graphene water passage holes.

The present invention generally relates to polymeric membrane materials formed, at least in part, from monomeric material selected from 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropene (CF.sub.3CF═CH.sub.2, HFO-1234yf) or trans-1,3,3,3-tetrafluoropropene (CF.sub.3CH═CFH, HFO-1234ze), and to membrane preparations and uses thereof in water desalination, filtration, membrane distillation, pervaporation, and selective gas separation.

Poly(amino acids) having hydrophilic side groups may be grafted onto active surfaces of polyamide composite membranes so as to confer fouling resistance. Polylysine, polyhistidine, polyarginine and their blends with polyglutamic acid may be grafted to membrane surfaces via amide linkages or via peroxide-induces bonding, modifying membrane surfaces behavior towards foulants.

The present invention relates to a composite porous hollow-fiber membrane including a first layer and a second layer which each include a fluororesin-based polymer, in which at least a part of molecular chains of the fluororesin-based polymer is oriented in a longitudinal direction of the composite porous hollow-fiber membrane, the molecular chains of the fluororesin-based polymer have a degree of orientation it in the longitudinal direction of the composite porous hollow-fiber membrane of 0.4 or higher but less than 1.0, the degree of orientation it being calculated with the specific formula.

The present invention is related to a method for fabricating multilayer singlebore membranes (10) or multilayer multibore membranes (20) for ultrafiltration applications including the following method steps: (a) feeding at least a material of a substrate (12), at least one material of a functional layer (14, 15) and a bore fluid (36) to a spinneret (30) simultaneously; (b) forming said membranes (10, 20) as a tube-like string (54) in a one-step process in said spinneret (30); (c) thereby assigning a functionality to said functional layer (14, 15) applied on at least one surface (13, 17) of said substrate (12). The invention is also related to a spinneret (30) for fabricating multilayer singlebore membranes (10) or multilayer multibore membranes (20), using the inventive method, and to a system comprising such a spinneret (30).