Membranes suitable for use in membrane distillation are provided. Such membranes may include nano-fibrous layers with adjustable pore sizes. The membranes may include a hydrophobic nanofibrous scaffold and a thin hydrophilic protecting layer that can significantly reduce fouling and scaling problems.

Flow capture device and method for removing cells from blood The current invention discloses a blood treating and/or purifying device for removing circulating pathogens, preferably pathogenic cells, more preferably circulating tumor cells from the blood of a patient, a method of producing such a device and method to treat cancer and other diseases caused by virus infection, bacterial infection and parasites infection as well as autoimmune disorders. The described method is an extracorporeal medical therapy, thus can be done also in a hemodialysis system. The current invention also describes a device and an in-situ production method of preparing the device to remove CTC and other pathogens i.e. virus, bacteria or parasites from the bloodstream.

A filter medium according to one embodiment of the present invention comprises: a first support having a plurality of pores; a nanofiber web comprising nanofibers disposed on upper and lower portions of the first support and forming a three-dimensional network structure, and a hydrophilic coating layer formed on at least a part of an outer surface of the nanofibers, wherein the hydrophilic coating layer is formed of a hydrophilic coating composition comprising a hydrophilic polymer compound having at least one functional group selected from a hydroxyl group and a carboxyl group and a crosslinking agent comprising at least one sulfone group; and a second support having a plurality of pores interposed between the first support and the nanofiber web.

An inline filter housing with a biodegradable, hydrophilic material that operates in conjunction with a field sampling apparatus to both concentrate field sampled environmental DNA particles from water samples and to automatically preserve the captured DNA via desiccation, thus avoiding filter membrane transfer steps, chemicals or cold storage preservation requirements. The hydrophilic filter housing is capable of rapidly preserving the field sampled environmental DNA captured on the filter membrane at ambient field temperatures.

A thin film composite gas separation membrane comprising a polyether block amide copolymer coating layer and a nanoporous asymmetric support membrane with nanopores on the skin layer surface of the support membrane and gelatin polymers inside the nanopores on the skin layer surface of the support membrane. A method for making the thin film composite gas separation membrane is provided as well as the use of the membrane for a variety of separations such as separations of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide from natural gas, carbon dioxide removal from flue gas, fuel gas conditioning, hydrogen/methane, polar molecules, and ammonia mixtures with methane, nitrogen or hydrogen and other light gases separations, but also for natural gas liquids recovery and hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide removal from natural gas in a single step.

Provided are a polyimide compound including a repeating unit having an aromatic diamine component having a specific structure in which a side-chain benzylic position is regioselectively brominated, a gas separation membrane having a gas separation layer containing the polyimide compound, and a gas separation module and a gas separation apparatus each having the gas separation membrane.

The present invention relates to an anti-fouling, semi-permeable membrane comprising a porous support layer, a thin film composite (TFC) layer formed on a surface of the support layer, and a cross-linked polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) layer formed on top of the TFC layer, wherein the cross-linked PVA layer is the reaction product of PVA and a cross-linking agent, said cross-linking agent being a polybasic acid comprising three or more acid groups or precursors thereof. The obtained membrane shows a high water flux and a low roughness suitable for an effective membrane notable for feed solution having a tendency of fouling the membrane.

A method for fabricating calcite channels in a nanofluidic device is described. A porous membrane is attached to a substrate. Calcite is deposited in porous openings in the porous membrane attached to the substrate. A width of openings in the deposited calcite is in a range from 50 to 100 nanometers (nm). The porous membrane is etched to remove the porous membrane from the substrate to form a fabricated calcite channel structure. Each channel has a width in the range from 50 to 100 nm.

A calcium and/or magnesium additive for membrane fouling control made up of particles for forming a dynamic protective layer on the membrane for fouling control of the membrane, when added in the liquid flowing through the membrane, wherein the particles are synthetic mineral precipitate particles based on calcium and/or magnesium selected from the group consisting of ultrafine synthetic mineral precipitate particles and microfine synthetic mineral precipitate particles, as well as a process and system for membrane fouling control.

A system for membrane fouling control configured to run one or more filter cycles, wherein each filter cycle of the one or more filter cycles includes an operation mode and a cleaning mode. The system includes: a first conduct portion; a second conduct portion; a membrane arranged between the first conduct portion and the second conduct portion. The membrane is configured in the operation mode to filter a liquid to be filtered by conducting it from the first conduct portion to the second conduct portion. A fouling control means filled with fouling control particles is added in the operation mode in the first conduct portion so that a dynamic protective layer is formed on the membrane. The fouling control particles are mineral particles based on calcium and/or magnesium.