Composite ionomer membrane tubing modules and system and methods incorporating same
OwnerBamdad Bahar, Harish Opadrishta +1inventors
InventorsBamdad Bahar, Harish Opadrishta, William Parmelee
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Abstract
A composite ion conducting tube is made by wrapping a support material or ion conducting sheet to from a tube having overlaps of layers that are bonded. The ion conducting sheet or tape used to make the tube may be very thin and the tube may be formed in situ by wrapping the support material and then coating with ion conducting polymer. The ion conducting tubes may be used in a pervaporation module or desalination system. The ion conducting tubes may be spirally wrapped or longitudinally wrapped and may be very thin having a tube wall thickness of no more than 25 microns.
Claims20
An ion conducting polymer module system comprising:
- a) a plurality of ion conducting tubes each comprising:
- i) a composite ion conducting sheet comprising:
- a permeable support material;
- and
- an ion conducting polymer that is imbibed into the permeable support material and extending along a surface of the permeable support material as a surface layer;
- an overlap area formed by an outer layer of the composite ion conducting sheet over an inner layer of the composite ion conducting sheet;
- wherein the overlap area is a bonded area consisting of the surface layer of ion conducting polymer of the outer layer of the composite ion conducting sheet being bonded directly to the surface layer of ion conducting polymer of the inner layer of the composite ion conducting sheet to form said ion conducting tube;
- wherein only the ion conducting polymer forms said bonded area between the outer layer and the inner layer;
- wherein the tube has a tube surface area that is the product of an outer circumference of the tube and a length of the tube, and wherein the overlap area is no more than 30% of the tube surface area;
- ii) a length from an inlet end to an outlet end;
- and
- iii) a tube conduit extending along said length,
- b) a module having a module inlet and a module outlet;
- c) a feed fluid that flows through the module on one of an inside or an outside of the plurality of ion conducting tubes;
- d) a process fluid that flows on an opposing said inside or said outside from the feed flow of the plurality of ion conducting tubes;
- wherein moisture is exchanged between the feed fluid and the process fluid and wherein moisture passes through the ion conducting tube.
The ion conducting polymer module system of 1, wherein the ion conducting tube is a longitudinally wrapped tube, wherein the overlap area extends longitudinally along the length of the tube.
The ion conducting polymer module system of 1, wherein the ion conducting tube is a spirally wrapped tube having a wrap angle of the composite ion conducting sheet around the ion conducting tube.
The ion conducting polymer module system of 1, wherein the tube has a tube surface area that is the product of an outer circumference of the tube and a length of the tube, and wherein the overlap area is no more than 20% of a tube surface area.
The ion conducting polymer module system of 1, wherein the ion conducting polymer is a cation conducting polymer.
The ion conducting polymer module system of 1, wherein the ion conducting polymer is an anion conducting polymer.
The ion conducting polymer module system of 1, wherein the support material is a porous fluoropolymer having pores.
The ion conducting polymer module system of 19, wherein the porous fluoropolymer is expanded polytetrafluoroethylene.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.