A system for separating a suspension of biological cells is disclosed comprising a single-use fluid circuit and a durable hardware component. The fluid circuit comprises a separator having a housing that includes an inlet for introducing the suspension of biological cells into the gap, a first outlet in communication with the gap for flowing a first type of cells from the separator, and a second outlet in communication with the second side of the filter membrane for flowing a second type of cells from the separator. The hardware component comprises a pump for flowing the suspension of biological cells to the inlet of the separator and at least one flow control device associated with the first outlet and the second outlet of the separator for selectively opening and closing the outlets so as to permit one of the first type of cells and the second type of cells to flow out of the separator in accordance with a predetermined duty cycle equal to the ratio of a target flow rate of first type of cells through the first outlet to the predetermined inlet flow rate.

The present disclosure is directed to ion-exchange systems and devices that can monitor key parameters related to the performance of the ion-exchange device. Specifically, the ion-exchange systems and devices disclosed herein can provide real time voltage drop across groups of membrane pairs using diagnostic spacer borders between the pairs. In addition, the ion-exchange systems and devices disclosed herein can monitor the compression force applied by the compression plates holding the ion-exchange systems and devices together.

Systems, methods and apparatuses to concentrate lithium containing solutions using forward osmosis units are provided, which, for example, can include providing at least one forward osmosis unit having at least one lithium containing solution chamber having at least one first inlet and at least one first outlet, at least one brine chamber having at least one second inlet and at least one second outlet, and at least one selectively permeable membrane positioned between the at least one lithium containing solution chamber and the at least one brine chamber, and conveying a lithium containing solution through the at least one lithium containing solution chamber and a concentrated brine solution through the at least one brine chamber, said conveying causing water from the lithium containing solution to be drawn through the at least one selectively permeable membrane and into the concentrated brine solution, such that a concentrated lithium containing solution exits through the first outlet and a less concentrated brine solution exits through the second outlet.

A control method uses in a membrane filter system operated in iterative filtration cycles, the cycles including a production period and a following flushing. A setting of a crossflow on the entrance side (4) of a membrane (2) in the production period is controlled such that the energy consumption (E) per filtration cycle reaches an optimum. A corresponding membrane filter system is provided.

Embodiments described herein relate to methods and systems for dewatering solutions via forward osmosis.

To solve problems of frequent occurrence and great harm of membrane fouling during MBR wastewater treatment process, the invention proposes a membrane fouling intelligent early warning method to realize online and accurate early warning of membrane fouling. This early warning method achieves accurate prediction of water permeability by constructing soft-computing model based on recurrent fuzzy neural network. The intelligent early warning of membrane fouling is achieved by the comprehensive evaluation method, which solves the problem that membrane fouling is difficult to be early warning in the MBR wastewater treatment process, improves the pretreatment ability of membrane fouling, reduces the damage caused by membrane fouling, ensures the safe operation of MBR wastewater treatment process, and promotes efficient and stable operation of MBR wastewater treatment plant.

A method of operating a membrane is provided. The membrane comprises: a porous layer; a first electrically conductive layer located on a first side of the porous layer; and a second electrically conductive layer located on a second side of the porous layer. When an electric voltage is applied between the first and second electrically conductive layer across the porous layer, the membrane prevents moisture intrusion from a first surface of the membrane towards a second surface of the membrane. The method comprises applying an electric voltage between the first and second electrically conductive layer across the porous layer to prevent moisture intrusion from the first surface of the membrane towards the second surface of the membrane when it is desired to prevent moisture intrusion from the first surface towards the second surface. A membrane system for performing the method is also provided.

The invention relates to a filtration device and to a method for characterizing a filter medium or a medium to be filtered. The filtration device comprises a plurality of filtration units. Each filtration unit comprises a first container, which is designed to receive a medium to be filtered, a second container, which is designed to receive a filtrate, at least one connecting line, which connects the first container to the second container, and a filter medium between the first container and the second container in order to filter the medium to be filtered. The first container is designed for the application of positive pressure thereto, and the second container is designed to receive a measurement instrument at ambient pressure.

Embodiments described herein relate to methods and systems for dewatering solutions via forward osmosis.

The present invention relates to a comprehensive evaluation method for the performance of contaminated flat membranes, which relates to the field of sewage and waste resource technology. The present invention firstly analyzed the composition of the surface elements of the contaminated membrane by EDX to determine the type of membrane contamination, and then designed different cleaning schemes for organic or inorganic pollution to obtain a sample membrane. When the tensile strength of the contaminated membrane decreased more than 50% than that of the control membrane, it is a waste membrane; when the tensile strength decreased less than 50% and the membrane flux reduced more than 30%, it is a waste membrane; when tensile strength decreased less than 50%, membrane flux reduced less than 30% and the carbon footprint was more than 188 g, it is a waste membrane; otherwise was a old membrane. The comprehensive evaluation method of the present invention can quantitatively, quickly and comprehensively define the difference between the old membrane and the waste membrane, and provides the basis for the selection of the contaminated membrane and the process of the regeneration and reuse.