Membranes & Separations

Liquid and gas or fluid purification, separation and filtration equipment, products, materials and technologies are widely used throughout the industrial sector and to provide water, air and gas filtration and purification capabilities to residential and commercial consumers. Alternatives to membrane separation of heterogeneous gas mixtures (such as atmospheric air, geologically-produced gas, industrial waste streams) include fractional distillation (at liquid phases or cryogenic conditions), adsorption and absorption methods.

Sorption methods result in the surface accumulation or altering of the active materials and require frequent replacement or cleaning. Cryogenic distillation of unpurified or mixed gases is a highly energy-intensive process.

Increasingly low-cost and bulk procurable synthetic and even some organic membranes have consequently seen prevalent applications in industrial filtration, purification and separation systems for fluid streams. End use industries for membrane separation include hydrogen separation from hydrocarbon gas streams, recovery of hydrogen from industrial process streams (including oil refining), separation of methane from other biogas constituent gases (carbon dioxide [CO2], nitrogen, and hydrogen sulfide), enriched air production (increased levels of oxygen), nitrogen removal for inert process gas applications, removal of CO2 from natural gas during processing, removal of hydrogen sulfide from produced gases, removal of water from gas (dessication), and the filtration and removal of complex organic compounds (like VOLs) from gas streams). Water purification, reverse osmosis (RO) water treatment, medicinal dialysis, and food disinfection are also accomplished through synthetic or artificial membranes. Filtration and separation is accomplished through flow geometries and device design as well as pore diameters (porous polymer membranes).