An asymmetric hollow fiber (CMS) carbon molecular sieve is made by providing a dope solution comprised of a polvimide and a solvent, at a temperature greater than 250° C. that is less than the storage modulus at a temperature of 250° C., but no more than ten times less as measured using dynamic mechanical thermal analysis from 250° C. to a temperature where the polyimide carbonizes. The polvimide is shaped into a hollow polvimide fiber, the solvent removed and the polyimide hollow fiber is heated to pyroiyze the polvimide and form the asymmetric hollow carbon molecular sieve. The asymmetric hollow fiber carbon molecular sieve has a wall that is defined by an inner surface and outer surface of said fiber and the wall has an inner porous support region extending from the inner surface to an outer raicroporous separation region that extends from the inner porous support region to the outer surface. Surprisingly, when the polyimide has the particular storage modulus characteristics, the method allows for the hollow fiber CMS to be made without any pre-treatmenis or additives to inhibit stractural collapse of the inner microporous region.

The present invention relates to a continuous process for preparing permselective hollow fiber membranes being suitable e.g. for hemodialysis, hemodiafiltration and hemofiltration of blood which comprises a two-stage drying and tempering treatment of the hollow fiber membranes. According to a further aspect, the invention relates to a continuous process for drying permselective hollow fiber membranes on-line. The invention also relates to devices for on-line drying of permselective hollow fiber membranes.

A low cost, high selectivity asymmetric polyimide/polyethersulfone (PES) blend hollow fiber membrane, a method of making the membrane and its use for a variety of liquid, gas, and vapor separations such as deep desulfurization of gasoline and diesel fuels, ethanol/water separations, pervaporation dehydration of aqueous/organic mixtures, CO.sub.2/CH.sub.4, CO.sub.2/N.sub.2, H.sub.2/CH.sub.4, He/CH.sub.4, O.sub.2/N.sub.2, H.sub.2S/CH.sub.4, olefin/paraffin, iso/normal paraffins separations, and other light gas mixture separations. The polyimide/PES blend hollow fiber membrane is fabricated from a blend of a polyimide polymer and PES and showed surprisingly unique gas separation property with higher selectivities than either the polyimide hollow fiber membrane without PES polymer or the PES hollow fiber membrane without PES polymer for gas separations such as for H.sub.2/CH.sub.4, He/CH.sub.4, H.sub.2S/CH.sub.4, CO.sub.2/CH.sub.4 separations.

Disclosed herein are vapour-phase crosslin ked composite membranes in the form of crosslinked polymers and defined inorganic materials. The membranes disclosed herein may have a narrow pore size distribution and precise molecule separation ability and may be used for organic solvent nanofiltration and organic solvent reverse osmosis. Also disclosed herein are methods of forming the membranes, and filtration. In a preferred embodiment, the vapour-phase crosslinked composite membrane is obtained by exposing a composite membrane comprising polyimide and UiO-66-NH.sub.2 particles to an amine vapour.

A virus removal membrane includes cellulose, and a primary-side surface through which the protein-containing solution is to be applied and a secondary-side surface from which a permeate that has permeated the virus removal membrane is to be flowed, wherein a bubble point is 0.5 MPa or more and 1.0 MPa or less; and when a solution containing gold colloids having a diameter of 30 nm is applied through the primary-side surface to the virus removal membrane to allow the virus removal membrane to capture the gold colloids for measurement of brightness in a cross section of the virus removal membrane, a value obtained by dividing a standard deviation of a value of an area of a spectrum of variation in the brightness by an average of the value of the area of the spectrum of variation in the brightness is 0.01 or more and 0.30 or less.

The invention relates to an apparatus and a method for the manufacture of at least one hollow fiber membrane, wherein a spinning mass is extruded via a spinning unit to form a spinning thread and precipitated in a precipitation bath to form a hollow fiber membrane and the hollow fiber membrane is optionally rinsed in a rinsing bath, wherein furthermore the hollow fiber membrane is passed through at least one drying unit, wherein the drying unit comprises a pressure section which is constructed in such a way that a positive pressure compared with atmospheric pressure can be set in the pressure section, and at least part of the precipitating agent or rinsing agent contained in the at least one hollow fiber membrane (104) is separated from the at least one hollow fiber membrane.

The present invention addresses the problem of providing a separating membrane mainly comprising a thermoplastic resin having high permeability. The present invention relates to a separating membrane including a thermoplastic resin, wherein the width of voids in the separating membrane is at least equal to 1 nm and at most equal to 1000 nm, and the curvature rate of the voids is at least equal to 1.0 and at most equal to 6.0.

A hollow fiber membrane of the present invention is a hollow fiber membrane having an outer surface and an inner surface, wherein the inner surface has a zebra stripe pattern in which dense portions and porous portions are alternately formed in the longitudinal direction, and the outer surface has a maximum pore size of about 1 μm or less (≤about 1 μm), and wherein the hollow fiber membrane has a water permeability (flux) of ≥about 1,300 LMH/bar to ≤about 5,000 LMH/bar.

The present invention belongs to the technical field of membranes and provides a carbon nanotube/nanofiber conductive composite membrane and a preparation method thereof. The conductive membrane with a meshy pore structure intertwined by one-dimensional nano materials is constructed by taking one-dimensional nanofiber nonwovens prepared by electrospinning as a support layer and CNTs cross linked on the support layer as a separation layer. The membrane pore size of the composite membrane involved can be controlled from microfiltration to ultrafiltration, and membrane morphology includes flat membranes, hollow fiber membranes, and spiral-wound membranes. The main advantages and beneficial effects of the composite membrane involved are: simple preparation steps, better permeability and mechanical strength, good hydrophilicity and electrical conductivity, and easy mass production and application.

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.