Integrated membrane filter
AssigneeL'Air Liquide Societe Anonyme a Directoire et Conseil de Surveillance pour l'Etude et l'Exploitations des Procedes Georges Claude
InventorCharles L. Anderson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A gas separation module includes an adsorbent filter medium inside the case that holds the active gas separation membrane. The adsorbent filter is positioned upstream of the membrane and is operative to extract from the feed gas contaminants which adversely affect membrane separation performance and which if not removed, would cause the membrane separation performance to deteriorate. The adsorbent filter fits within vacant space in conventionally-sized hollow fiber membrane modules and thus can obviate the need to install an external adsorbent filter upstream of the module and/or to enlarge the space occupied by the module to accommodate addition of the internal adsorbent medium.
Claims18
A method of using a membrane to separate components of a gas mixture having gaseous contaminants which can affect the separation performance of the membrane, the method comprising:
- providing a module comprising
- a shell;
- a selectively gas permeable membrane within the shell;
- and
- a filter medium operative to selectively remove the contaminants from the gas mixture, the filter medium being positioned between the shell and the membrane;
- introducing the gas mixture into the shell;
- conducting the gas mixture through the filter medium, thereby producing a filtered mixture depleted in contaminants relative to the gas mixture;
- and
- contacting the membrane with the filtered mixture, thereby forming a permeate gas enriched in more preferentially permeable components of the gas mixture.
A module comprising a selectively gas permeable membrane for separating components of a gas mixture having gaseous contaminants which can affect the separation performance of the membrane, the module comprising:
- a shell;
- a gas separating membrane within the shell;
- and
- a filter medium within the shell operative to prevent the contaminants from contacting the membrane.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.