Methods of making blended, isoporous, asymmetric (graded) films (e.g. ultrafiltration membranes) comprising two or more chemically distinct block copolymers and blended, isoporous, asymmetric (graded) films (e.g. ultrafiltration membranes) comprising two or more chemically distinct block copolymers. The generation of blended membranes by mixing two chemically distinct block copolymers in the casting solution demonstrates a pathway to advanced asymmetric block copolymer derived films, which can be used as ultrafiltration membranes, in which different pore surface chemistries and associated functionalities can be integrated into a single membrane via standard membrane fabrication, i.e. without requiring laborious post-fabrication modification steps. The block copolymers may be diblock, triblock and/or multiblock mixes and some block copolymers in the mix may be functionally modified. Triblock copolymers comprising a reactive group (e.g., sulfhydryl group) terminated block and films comprising the triblock copolymers.

Devices and methods are provided that permit efficient and selective separation of liquid biological specimens into at least two constituent components to facilitate subsequent quantitative and qualitative analysis on at least one analyte of interest in at least one of the components. The devices generally include one or more sample deposition regions supported on a base. Each sample deposition region includes a separation membrane for separating the liquid biological specimen into two different fractions. The first fraction is trapped by the separation membrane while the second fraction passes through the separation membrane and into a respective collection membrane. The separation and collection membranes are easily separable from the devices and can be utilized for further processing and analysis.

The invention relates to pre-treating an oil derived from a renewable feedstock to remove at least a portion of one or more contaminants by filtering the oil with a nanofiltration membrane. The resulting permeate oil has a reduced concentration of the contaminant relative to the feed stream to the nanofiltration membrane.

The present disclosure relates to a technology of preparing an anion exchange composite membrane including: a porous polymer support; and a polyfluorene-based anion exchange membrane or a polyfluorene-based anion exchange membrane having a cross-linked structure formed on the support, and applying the same to alkaline fuel cells, water electrolysis, carbon dioxide reduction, metal-air batteries, etc. The polyfluorene-based anion exchange composite membrane including a porous polymer support according to the present disclosure has remarkably improved mechanical properties, dimensional stability, durability, long-term stability, etc.

This raw-material liquid concentration system is for use in a pharmaceutical product manufacturing process, and employs a membrane-distillation method involving: bringing a raw-material liquid containing a solvent and a solute into contact with cooling water through a membrane-distillation membrane; passing the solvent in the raw-material liquid through the membrane-distillation membrane in the form of vapor; and causing the solvent to move toward the side of the cooling water, wherein the membrane-distillation membrane is a porous membrane that has a water contact angle of at least 90? at the surface thereof, has an average pore diameter of 0.02-0.5 ?m, and has a porosity of 60-90%.

A substrate for a liquid filter contains a polyolefin microporous membrane. A mean flow pore size d.sub.PP in a pore size distribution of the polyolefin microporous membrane measured by a half dry method according to gas-liquid phase substitution is from 1 nm to 20 nm. A mean flow pore size d.sub.LLP in a pore size distribution of the polyolefin microporous membrane measured by a half dry method according to liquid-liquid phase substitution is from 1 nm to 15 nm. A difference (d.sub.PP?d.sub.LLP) between the mean flow pore size d.sub.PP and the mean flow pore size d.sub.LLP is 12 nm or less, and a thickness of the polyolefin microporous membrane is from 4 to 25 ?m.

An object is to provide a porous film which has excellent removal performance of viruses and the like and a long lifetime, a virus removal method which uses the porous film as a filter, a method for producing a virus-free product which uses the porous film as a filter and a device which includes the porous film as a filter. In a porous film including a structure of spherical pores communicating with each other, an interconnected pore is an opening of the spherical pores communicating with each other, and the pore diameter of the interconnected pore is set to 10 nm or more and 35 nm or less, and the number of spherical pores which are present between one surface of the porous film and the other surface thereof and are 50 nm or more and 200 nm or less is set to 200 or more and 1000 or less.

The present disclosure provides an article including an isoporous membrane disposed on a porous substrate. The iso-porous membrane includes a triblock copolymer or a pentablock copolymer. The isoporous membrane has a thickness and is isoporous throughout its thickness. A method of making an article is also provided, which does not require a solvent exchange process. The method includes depositing a composition on a porous substrate, thereby forming a fdm, and removing at least a portion of the solvent from the film, thereby forming an isoporous membrane having numerous pores. The composition contains a solvent and solids including a triblock copolymer or a pentablock copolymer. The article advantageously can be hydrophilic and provides sharp molecular weight cut-offs and high flux.

Nanofiltration membranes and methods of using and making thereof are disclosed. The nanofiltration membranes contain a silk layer, a porous substrate, and a selective layer. The silk layer is an interlayer sandwiched between the porous substrate and selective layer. The nanofiltration membranes have high performance for filtering water, such as improved water permeance and/or high ion removal rate. For example, the nanofiltration show a water permeance that is at least 2-fold, such as about 5-fold, of the water permeance of a commercially available nanofiltration membrane, such as DuPont FilmTec? NF270 and/or DuPont FilmTec? NF90, and an ion rejection of at least 70% against a target ion, such as a divalent or multivalent ion. The greatly improved water permeance of the nanofiltration membranes can result in up to a magnitude lower energy consumption in water filtration applications.

The present invention relates to a method for recovering a rare metal salt, the method including: an acid treatment step of obtaining a rare metal-containing acidic aqueous solution by bringing a material including a monovalent rare metal and a polyvalent rare metal into contact with an acidic aqueous solution; a separation step of obtaining permeated water including the monovalent rare metal and non-permeated water including the polyvalent rare metal from the rare metal-containing acidic aqueous solution by using a nanofiltration membrane satisfying the condition (1); and a concentration step of obtaining non-permeated water having a higher concentration of the monovalent rare metal and permeated water having a lower concentration of the monovalent rare metal than that of the permeated water in the separation step, by using a reverse osmosis membrane.