The present disclosure is directed to methods and systems of purifying solvents. The purified solvents can be used for cleaning a semiconductor substrate in a multistep semiconductor manufacturing process.

A method of removing chemical contaminants from a composition comprising an active, a solvent, and a contaminant can include providing an initial feed supply, wherein the initial feed supply comprises the active, the solvent, and the contaminant, wherein the contaminant can include 1,4 dioxane, dimethyl dioxane, or a combination thereof; including filtering the initial feed stock through a nanofilter.

A method of removing chemical contaminants from a composition comprising an active, a solvent, and a contaminant can include providing an initial feed supply, wherein the initial feed supply comprises the active, the solvent, and the contaminant, wherein the contaminant can include 1,4 dioxane, dimethyl dioxane, or a combination thereof; including filtering the initial feed stock through a nanofilter and using reverse osmosis.

A method for reducing beverage loss during loading of beverage into an ethanol concentration system having a set of reverse osmosis pressure vessels, each pressure vessel having a feed inlet, a retentate outlet, and a permeate outlet. The method includes feeding deaerated water into the feed inlet of a first pressure vessel, feeding the beverage into the feed inlet of the first pressure vessel, monitoring an alcohol percentage at the retentate outlet of a second pressure vessel, the second pressure vessel coupled directly or indirectly to the first pressure vessel, and coupling a retentate from the retentate outlet of the second pressure vessel to a feed tank coupled to the feed inlet of the first pressure vessel when the alcohol percentage is within a first target range of 0.5 to 18% alcohol-by-volume (ABV).

A feed containing methane and nitrogen gas is processed in a three-stage membrane system, each stage of which is selective for methane over nitrogen. The methane enriched permeate from the first stage is removed as product gas. The methane-depleted residue from the second stage is purified in second and third cascaded stages to provide second and third permeates and second and third residues. The third stage permeate is recycled to the feed.

Methods and apparatus for onsite generation of acid and base solutions for cleaning purposes through the utilization of bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BPED) are described. The methods eliminate the need to s store large quantities of acids and bases onsite or to transport the acid and base solutions to the cleaning site. A method of recycling substantially neutralized waste salt solutions into acid and base solutions for additional cleaning, thus decreasing the amount of waste salt discharged to the environment, also is described.

Dumping a reverse osmosis (RO) reject stream from a wastewater treatment and reclamation plant (WWTRP) into the sea directly destroys aquatic life and indirectly affects public health. This triggers solving the problem by methods and systems provided herein. One embodiment begins with utilizing two types of waste; one is the RO reject stream in its entirety, and the other is letdown steam from once-through-steam-generators (OTSGs) or steam from a standalone OTSG fueled by co-produced sour gas. It ends with thermally sterilizing toxicity and isolating it by the alkalinity content of the RO reject stream itself, combating sulfate scale and recovering it as a useful product, and producing distillate for heavy oil recovery by steam injection and de-scaled brine for improved oil recovery by water flooding. The vehicle to attain this set of solutions is a recycle-brine multi-stage flash (RB-MSF) desalination train with two modified flashing stages.

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.

The present disclosure is directed to methods and systems of purifying solvents. The purified solvents can be used for cleaning a semiconductor substrate in a multistep semiconductor manufacturing process.

A system for growing algae in a slurry, includes a pond having an inlet and an outlet and a plurality of contiguous elongate channel segments coupled fluidically in sequence between the inlet and the outlet, and the inlet is located at an elevation higher than outlet to allow gravity to flow the slurry from the inlet to the outlet. The system further includes a separation device fluidically coupled to the outlet to receive and separate algae from the slurry.