A method for treating a natural gas containing carbon dioxide using membrane modules which are assigned to a first treatment stage or a second treatment stage and are fluidically connected to a retentate mode or a permeate mode. When evolution in the operating conditions results in one of the processing levels requiring less membrane surface for gas processing and the other processing level requiring more membrane surface for gas processing, then the method allows for reassignment of needed membrane modules assigned from one processing level requiring less membrane surface to another processing level requiring more membrane surface.

Methods and systems are provided herein utilizing a membrane cascade to separate a hydrocarbon feed into boiling point fractions. Also provided herein are methods for selecting membranes for said cascades to achieve the desired boiling point fraction separation.

A system and method for producing from saline source water a product containing an increased ratio of multi-valent ions to mono-valent ions, which includes multiple nanofiltration units arranged to selectively remove mono-valent ions from the water fed into each nanofiltration stage in the nanofiltration permeate stream while retaining multi-valent ions in the nanofiltration reject stream. The rate at which the increase in the multi-valent ion- to mono-valent ion ratio is obtained may be enhanced by introduction of lower salinity water into the nanofiltration reject between stages, and by recirculating a portion of downstream nanofiltration reject flow into an upstream nanofiltration unit. The enhanced multi-valent ion product is suitable for multiple uses, including irrigation of plants and remineralization of desalinated water. The relative concentrations of the multi-valent ions in the product may be adjusted, for example by selection of nanofiltration membrane technologies which have higher or lower rejection for specific multi-valent ions.

A mixed matrix membrane comprises a support structure. The support structure comprises a glassy polymer matrix, and nanodiamond particles dispersed within the glassy polymer matrix. A gas separation membrane apparatus, a gaseous fluid treatment system, and a method of forming a mixed matrix membrane are also described.

A system and method for producing from saline source water a product containing an increased ratio of multi-valent ions to mono-valent ions, which includes multiple nanofiltration units arranged to selectively remove mono-valent ions from the water fed into each nanofiltration stage in the nanofiltration permeate stream while retaining multi-valent ions in the nanofiltration reject stream. The rate at which the increase in the multi-valent ion to mono-valent ion ratio is obtained may be enhanced by introduction of lower salinity water into the nanofiltration reject between stages, and by recirculating a portion of downstream nanofiltration reject flow into an upstream nanofiltration unit. The enhanced multi-valent ion product is suitable for multiple uses, including irrigation of plants and remineralization of desalinated water. The relative concentrations of the multi-valent ions in the product may be adjusted, for example by selection of nanofiltration membrane technologies which have higher or lower rejection for specific multi-valent ions.

Disclosed herein is apparatus for recovering an acid or a base during a uranium extraction process. The apparatus contacts contacting a feed stream comprising the acid or base and the uranium with an ultrafiltration membrane to produce an ultrafiltration retentate and an ultrafiltration permeate, and contacting the ultrafiltration permeate with a nanofiltration membrane. The nanofiltration retentate produced comprises a majority of the uranium from the feed stream, and the nanofiltration permeate produced comprises a majority of the acid or base from the feed stream.

This invention relates to various membrane-based processes and their combinations, such as Forward Osmosis (FO), Reverse 5 Osmosis (RO), Nanofiltration (NF), Ultrafiltration (UF), Membrane Bioreactor (MBR), Osmotic Distillation (OD) and Membrane Distillation (MD), for various application of dilution, concentration, dewatering, separation, purification, fractionation or extraction applications of different solvents including 10 various sources of water, wastewater, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), food and beverage sources, dairy products etc. It is also applicable to all the industrial and domestic applications that involves recovering or water reclamation from inlet sources.

Liquid solution concentration systems, and related methods, are generally described. In some embodiments, the system is an osmotic system comprising a plurality of osmotic modules. For example, the osmotic system can comprise a feed osmotic module configured to produce an osmotic module retentate outlet stream having a higher concentration of solute than the retentate inlet stream transported to the feed osmotic module. The osmotic system can also comprise an isolation osmotic module fluidically connected to the feed osmotic module. The osmotic system can also optionally comprise a purification osmotic module fluidically connected to the feed osmotic module and/or the isolation osmotic module. Certain embodiments are related to altering the degree to which the feed osmotic module retentate outlet stream is recycled back to the retentate-side inlet of the feed osmotic module during operation. Additional embodiments are related to the manner in which the retentate-side effluent from the isolation osmotic module is distributed among the system modules during operation.

Provided are methods, devices, and kits for the isolation of extracellular vesicles using silicon nanomembranes. A method for EV isolation includes the steps of collecting a biofluid sample, contacting the biofluid sample with a pre-filtration membrane, thereby forming a first filtrate and a first retentate, optionally, washing the first retentate of the pre-filtration membrane, contacting the first filtrate from the pre-filtration membrane with a capture membrane, thereb forming a second filtrate and a second retentate, optionally, washing the second retentate, and eluting the second retentate from the capture membrane or lysing the second retentate to recover the contents.

A multistage membrane system and a process for treating a gas stream is provided in which the multistage membrane system comprises at least two membrane units wherein a first stage membrane unit comprises a polymeric membrane and a second membrane unit comprises a microporous zeolitic inorganic membrane or a combination of a microporous zeolitic inorganic membrane and a polymeric membrane.