One aspect of the present disclosure provides a production method for a porous membrane including pores, and concave portions having an average opening diameter greater than an average pore diameter of the pores on at least one of a pair of main surfaces, the method including a step of forming the concave portion on a surface to be the main surface.

A microporous membrane for filtering and a method for preparing the same, a flat filtering element and a gas filtering article are disclosed. The microporous membrane is composed of following raw materials in parts by weight: 100-110 parts of polyethylene, 27-30 parts of acrylonitrile, 0.1-0.2 parts of dicumyl peroxide, 2-4 parts of plasticizer, 1-2 parts of antimonous oxide, 0.8-1 part of zinc borate, 1-2 parts of antioxidant, 0.8-2 parts of heat stabilizer, 1-2 parts of octylisothiazolinone, 1-3 parts of calcium propionate, 0.7-2 parts of triglycidyl isocyanurate, 4-6 parts of diacetone alcohol, 0.7-1 part of oleic diethanolamide, 0.5-1 part of sodium myrastate and 1-2 parts of glycolic acid.

Provided are membranes useful for electrochemical or fuel cells. A membrane may be formed of or include a sulfonated polymer whereby the sulfonated polymer is covalently or ionically associated with a multi-nitrogen containing heterocyclic molecule. The resulting membranes possess excellent ion conductivity and selectivity.

A process for separating a feed gas comprising a polar gas and a non-polar gas into a permeate gas and a retentate gas, one of which is enriched in the polar gas and the other of which is depleted in the polar gas, the process comprising passing the feed gas through a gas separation module comprising: (i) a feed carrier comprising a membrane envelope and a feed spacer located within the membrane envelope; and (ii) a permeate carrier comprising: (a) a macroporous sheet; and (b) a protective sheet; and wherein: i) the feed gas is fed along the feed spacer of the feed carrier and a part of the feed gas passes through the membrane envelope and into the permeate carrier to give the permeate gas and a part of the feed gas is rejected by the membrane to give the retentate gas; ii) the protective sheet shields at least a part of the membrane envelope from contact with the macroporous sheet; and iii) the protective sheet comprises a non-woven material.

Disclosed herein is a complex generator including a hydrophilic fiber membrane coated with an adsorption material. Electrical energy is generated in such a manner that the adsorption material is adsorbed onto a polar solvent in some region of the hydrophilic fiber membrane by asymmetrical wetting of the polar solvent for the hydrophilic fiber membrane.

A membrane element includes a filtration membrane and a flowpath member joined thereto. The flowpath member is made of yarn arranged into a three-dimensional structure, and includes inner spaces through which a permeated liquid permeated through the filtration membrane flows, and an outer bonding surface joined to the filtration membrane. At least part of the yarn forming the outer bonding surface is a low-melting point yarn having a softening point lower than that of a material forming the filtration membrane, or the yarn forming the outer bonding surface is formed by twisting a plurality of constituent yarns, and at least one of the constituent yarns is a low-melting point yarn having a softening point lower than that of the material forming the filtration membrane.

A membrane is described for purifying or separating hydrogen from a multi-component gas stream such as syngas. This membrane uses a molecular pre-treatment, a transition metal, fluorine containing polymer, carbon fibers and carbon matrix sintered on a supportive screen. The membrane may be a bilayer membrane comprised of a layer containing high surface area carbon and another layer containing lower surface area carbon.

Embodiments are directed to composite membranes having: increased volume of the microporous polymer structure relative to the total volume of the PEM; decreased permeance and thus increased selectivity; and lower ionomer content. An increased amount of polymers of the microporous polymer structure is mixed with a low equivalent weight ionomer (e.g., <460 cc/mole eq) to obtain a composite material having at least two distinct materials. Various embodiments provide a composite membrane comprising a microporous polymer structure that occupies from 13 vol % to 65 vol % of a total volume of the composite membrane, and an ionomer impregnated in the microporous polymer structure. The acid content of the composite membrane is 1.2 meq/cc to 3.5 meq/cc, and/or the thickness of the composite membrane is less than 17 microns. The selectivity of the composite membrane is greater than 0.05 MPa/mV, based on proton conductance and hydrogen permeance.

The present invention relates to a fabric for purification of water. An object of the present invention is to provide a fabric for purification of liquids which achieves at least 2 log reductions of bacteria, and viruses. It is a further object of the present invention to provide a fabric for purification of liquids which provides high flow rates in gravity fed water purification systems. The present inventors have surprisingly found that a fabric having a matrix of polymer impregnated with organosilane superimposed on a surface of the fibre of a fibrous support not only provides reduction of viruses from a liquid to be purified at low pressure drops but also removes bacteria without using a separate microfiltration membrane and also retains high flow rates.

Embodiments of the present invention provide the integration of the function of the feed spacer, the permeate carrier, or both, as a part of the membrane sheet in a spiral wound membrane element.