Spiral-wound membrane cartridge with ribbed and spaced carrier layer

A spiral wound membrane cartridge for separating a first component from a fluid mixture of the first component and a second component, which cartridge comprises

• a porous sheetlike membrane having pore sized to allow passage of the first component in a generally transverse direction while rejecting passage therethrough of the second component, said membrane being spirally wound about a central tube,
• a feed carrier layer of non-woven channel material having a plurality of generally parallel ribs of similar size of extruded polypropylene spaced apart from one another, said ribs being interconnected by smaller filaments of polypropylene which extend transverse to said ribs and maintain said spacing and form between about 4 and about 10 feed-carrying channels per inch extending in a direction of flow parallel to the axis of said tube, said ribs being generally rectangular in cross-section and said filaments arranged in a plane located along either the top or the bottom of said rectangular ribs, the spacing between said filaments being between about 0.5 and about 1.5 times the spacing between said ribs, said feed carrier layer being disposed adjacent a supply surface of said membrane;
• and
• a permeate carrier layer disposed adjacent a discharge surface of said membrane, said permeate carrier layer extending spirally inward to said central tube which is adapted to conduct the discharge flow of the first component from said cartridge.

A spiral wound membrane cartridge for separating a first component from a fluid mixture of the first component and a second component, which cartridge comprises

• a porous sheetlike membrane having pores sized to allow passage of the first component in a generally transverse direction while rejecting passage therethrough of the second component, said membrane being spirally wound about a central tube,
• a flexible feed carrier layer of sheetlike material having a plurality of generally parallel ribs of similar size of extruded polymeric material spaced apart from one another and interconnected by smaller filaments which extend transverse to said ribs and maintain said spacing to form feed-carrying channels, the regions between said parallel ribs being open except for said filaments, said feed carrier layer being wound spirally with said membrane and disposed within said spiral winding adjacent a supply surface of said membrane and oriented so that said channels extend in a direction of flow parallel to the axis of said tube,
• said ribs providing between 3 and about 10 channels per inch, being generally rectangular in cross-section and being oriented so that the longer dimension of said rectangular ribs defines the thickness of said feed carrier layer,
• said filaments having a thickness less than one-half the thickness of said ribs and being located to lie in a plane along either surface of said sheetlike material, and
• a permeate carrier layer disposed adjacent a discharge surface of said membrane, said permeate carrier extending spirally inward to said central tube which is adapted to conduct the discharge flow of the first component from said cartridge.