This invention describes a method and a device for efficient isolation of extracellular vesicles from animal and human biological fluids, as well as from culture fluid using equipment of standard diagnostic laboratories, that is, without the use of ultracentrifugation. These method and device can be applied for the diagnosis of various human diseases, as well as for therapeutic purposes, if the purified vesicles are used as an agent for drug delivery to the cells of the body. The device for the purification of extracellular vesicles contains at least two membrane filters: the first filter containing a membrane with pore sizes in the range from 400 to 600 nm, connected to the second filter containing a membrane with pores in the range from 95 to 200 nm. At the same time, the membranes of these filters are made of materials that practically do not bind biological polymers.

A system for treatment of a polluted effluent, includes an outer chamber configured to treat the polluted effluent in mixture with a purification slurry including particles of one or more catalysts and/or organoclays, or a mixture thereof. The outer chamber includes (i) a stirring unit consisting of an engine and a stirrer, configured to mix the polluted effluent and the purification slurry to prevent the particles from sinking without causing a turbulence, (ii) a membrane located at the top of the outer chamber through which a treated effluent passes, while preventing the particles of one or more catalysts and/or organoclays from exiting the outer chamber together with the treated effluent, (iii) a membrane cleaning system configured to remove and collect the particles of one or more catalysts and/or organoclays accumulated on the membrane, and re-introducing the particles back to the bottom of the outer chamber.

Two-dimensional materials having apertures in their basal planes are described, where at least a portion of the apertures are occluded with a selectively introduced occluding moiety. Occluding moieties that pass into apertures function to occlude apertures. Composite membranes are described having a porous substrate with a two-dimensional material disposed on the membrane and covering only a portion of the pores, wherein at least a portion of uncovered substrate pores are occluded. Pore occlusion can be achieved by introduction of an occluding particle optionally followed by chemical reaction, deformation or swelling of the particle to facilitate occlusion of pores. Two-dimensional materials covering substrate pores can be size-selected and optionally functionalized providing for selective permeability through composite membranes. Methods for occluding defects and apertures in two-dimensional materials and for selectively occluding pores in composite membranes are provided. Selectively occluded materials and membranes are useful in filtration and other applications.

A two-dimensional membrane layered structure may include a support substrate layer having a plurality of substrate passages configured to allow fluid to flow therethrough, a two-dimensional membrane layer disposed on an upper surface of the support substrate layer, and a plurality of flow passages disposed between the support substrate layer and the two-dimensional membrane layer. The two-dimensional membrane layer may have a plurality of pores configured to allow fluid to flow therethrough. The plurality of pores may comprise a first portion of pores that overlap with the plurality of substrate passages and a second portion of pores that do not overlap with the plurality of substrate passages. The plurality of flow passages may be configured to allow fluid to flow through the second portion of pores to the plurality of substrate passages.

In order to provide a hydrogen purification device in which a source gas is supplied, from which a purified gas flows out, that is easily manufacturable, and in which the pressure resistance of an hydrogen permeable membrane is high, the hydrogen purification device is configured to include a hydrogen permeable membrane allowing hydrogen to selectively permeate therethrough, two porous supports that sandwich and support the hydrogen permeable membrane from both surfaces thereof, and a casing having a space formed therein configured to accommodate reaction of the source gas and the hydrogen permeable membrane. The porous supports are contained inside the casing, an outermost edge of the hydrogen permeable membrane extends outward from the outer edges of the porous supports in at least one location, and a peripheral portion of the hydrogen permeable membrane in a vicinity of the outermost edge and the casing are airtightly sealed to each other.

A fluid treatment arrangement may include a fluid treatment unit having a multilayer structure. The multilayer structure may include at least one feed layer, at least one permeate layer, and at least one layer of a permeable fluid treatment medium between the feed layer and the permeate layer. The fluid treatment unit may further include a thermoset which holds the layers together and forms at least a portion of a first end surface of the fluid treatment unit. The fluid treatment arrangement may also include a thermoplastic sheet which overlies the first end surface of the fluid treatment unit. The thermoset directly bonds to the thermoplastic sheet.

A vacuum filter device comprising a filter body having two holders on opposite sides of a filter. Each holder contains a closed container in a fluid-tight, sealed relationship. The filter is retained by a compression sealing element and the sealing element is maintained in place by a compression element formed of a ring. The compression element is bonded to a portion of the body to hold it, the sealing element and filter in place under a compression seal. Optionally a port in the compression element is formed to align with the vent of the device. Further, an alignment feature on the compression element ensures the port is in alignment with the vent of the device. The device also includes a vacuum port communicating with the downstream side of the filter, and hence the filtrate container.

Many hand-held diagnostics are limited in their functionality due to the challenging physics associated with small dimensional systems. An example of this is capillary forces in hydrophilic systems, such as the tight retention of liquid passing through a small pore filtration membrane, or capillary force driven microfluidics where, to keep liquid flowing the dimensions of the system become so small that the flow rates are too low to be useful, or the manufacturing of such devices becomes uneconomical. This disclosure details methods to ‘reset’ the capillary force condition to avoid the requirement of transient pressure spikes associated with the breakthrough pressure of small pore membranes, and avoid the necessity of extremely small microfluidic channels, which can be useful in applications such as filtration of whole blood to plasma using only suction pressure or passive capillary pressure.

A connection mechanism for a suction device for vacuum membrane filtration applications, includes a support for receiving a membrane filter or a filtration base, a cavity formed below the membrane filter or the filtration base, a suction duct which opens centrally into the cavity, and a ventilation duct which opens laterally into the cavity. The connection mechanism further includes a closing element which can be moved into several switching positions and which can block or unblock both the suction duct and the ventilation duct depending on the switching positions.

The present invention provides methods for designing a filtration systems for capturing viable tumor cells, such as circulating tumor cells at high efficiency and high viability. The methods involve development of a set of “key engineering design parameters” that are crucial to achieve high tumor cell viability. These important design parameters include the filter geometry design, fluid delivery method, transfilter pressure and total filtration time.