The invention relates to an undulated thermostable hollow fiber membrane of reduced wall thickness, wherein the wall thickness amounts to 20 μm or greater and 30 μm or less and the waveform of the hollow fiber membrane exhibits a wavelength in the range of from more than 1 mm and less than 5 mm. In particular, the invention relates to a method for producing an undulated thermostable hollow fiber membrane of lower wall thickness.

Provided is a porous hollow fiber membrane made of a thermoplastic resin, wherein a membrane thickness is 0.050 mm or larger and 0.25 mm or smaller, and when a strength coefficient is defined as K=(compressive strength)/((membrane thickness)/(inside diameter/2)).sup.3, K=1.7 or more.

The present disclosure relates to a device and a process for cutting hollow fiber membranes having a large inner diameter.

The present disclosure relates to hollow fiber tangential flow filters, including hollow fiber tangential flow depth filters, for various applications, including bioprocessing and pharmaceutical applications, systems employing such filters, and methods of filtration using the same.

The invention relates to a method and apparatus for treatment of produced or process water from hydrocarbon production to reduce the volume of the produced or process water while simultaneously reducing the salinity of a highly saline stream, for example, the brine from a seawater desalination plant. The method includes causing a feed stream comprising produced or process water to flow through the lumen of a hollow fiber osmotic membrane 4 which is immersed in an open channel 2 or tank of flowing draw solution 6 which has high salinity. In this way, water from the feed stream is drawn through the osmotic membrane 4 by an osmotic pressure differential caused by the difference in salinity between the feed stream and the draw solution 6.

This disclosure relates to the use of a hydrophobic hollow fiber filter for the filtration of cell cultures and other biological perfusions, due to its resistance to fouling, as well as the ability to filter solutions with a high solid content. A hydrophobic hollow fiber filter may be used within a filter housing in conjunction with a process vessel and a traditional separation system. When the system is used with alternating tangential flow or tangential flow filtration, the hydrophobic hollow fiber filter results in more effective filtration of the filtrate, leading to greater concentration of the retentate, even in solution containing high levels of solids.

The present invention relates to units for separation of gas mixtures using hollow fiber membranes and may be used in chemical, oil, gas and other industries. More specifically, this invention relates to the structure of the membrane gas separation module which may be applied, for instance, in membrane separation units for helium concentrate. The membrane gas separation module comprises the horizontal body with end covers and membrane cartridges made of a bundle of hollow fibers and located in an inversed manner in relation to the center. The body comprises symmetrical end sections of large diameter which are mated by conical transition sections with the central section of minor diameter. In this case length of end sections corresponds with length restricted by the body end and input area of membrane cartridges, and central section inner diameter is configured to provide both free mounting/dismounting of membrane cartridges and tight fit thereof at the sealing point with ring gaskets. Feed gas input nozzles are located on end sections of the body perpendicularly to its longitudinal axis in front of input areas of membrane cartridges, permeate output nozzles are located on end sections of the body near end covers perpendicularly to the body longitudinal axis. The technical result is reduction of weight and dimensional properties of the membrane module and the whole gas separation unit in general, as well as reduction of labor intensity of operations during mounting/dismounting of body end covers of the membrane module.

A filtration module according to one embodiment of the present invention includes plural hollow fiber membranes held while being aligned in one direction and a pair of holding members that fix both ends of the hollow fiber membranes. In the holding members, an existence region where the hollow fiber membranes exist has a rectangular shape in a direction perpendicular to the direction in which the hollow fiber membranes are aligned. The hollow fiber membranes are arranged in a matrix in a long side direction and a short side direction of the existence region. In the existence region, a ratio of an average pitch of the hollow fiber membranes in the long side direction to an average pitch of the hollow fiber membranes in the short side direction is 1.2 or more and 2.5 or less.

The purpose of the present invention is to provide a porous hollow fiber membrane that can efficiently separate and remove the substances to be removed such as small-particle virus contained in a solution and, at the same time, useful recovering substances such as protein can be efficiently permeated and the decrease of its transmission rate with elapse of time is small. The porous hollow fiber membrane of the present invention is characterized in that the filtration downstream surface thereof has dot-shaped or slit-shaped pores, the filtration upstream surface thereof is a network structure or a fine particle aggregate structure, the central region of the membrane is composed of a substantially homogeneous structure, the membrane wall is composed of a structure having substantially no macrovoids, the permeability for pure water is 10 to 300 L/(h.Math.m.sup.2.Math.bar) and the permeability for a 0.1% by weight solution of bovine γ-globulin is 30 to 100% of the permeability for pure water. Also, the hollow fiber membrane is characterized in that the permeability for a 0.1% by weight solution of bovine γ-globulin in a 20 mmol/L phosphate buffer is 30 to 100% of the permeability for a 0.1% by weight solution of bovine γ-globulin in a 20 mmol/L phosphate-buffered physiological saline solution.

The present disclosure relates to semipermeable membranes which are suitable for blood purification, e.g. by hemodialysis, which have an increased ability to remove larger molecules while at the same time effectively retaining albumin. The membranes are characterized by a molecular retention onset (MWRO) of between 9.0 kD and 14.5 kD and a molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) of between 55 kD and 130 kD as determined by dextran sieving curves and can be prepared by industrially feasible processes excluding a treatment with salt before drying. The invention therefore also relates to a process for the production of the membranes and to their use in medical applications.