Patent attributes
This present invention relates to a fluid separation module adapted to separate a given fluid mixture into permeate and retentate portions using bundles of hollow fiber membranes. The membranes may be composed of different kinds of membranes depending on the application being used to separate the fluid mixture. The fluid separation module may be used to separate fluid mixtures by a number of different processes, including but not limited to, pervaporation, vapour permeation, membrane distillation (both vacuum membrane distillation and direct contact membrane distillation), ultra filtration, microfiltration, nanofiltration, reverse osmosis, membrane stripping and gas separation. The present invention also provides an internal heat recovery process applied in association with those fluid separation applications where separation takes place by evaporation through the membrane of a large portion of the feed into permeate. Desalination and contaminated water purification by means of vacuum membrane distillation are just two examples where the internal heat recovery process may be applied. In these two examples, large portions of the feed are separated by membranes into a high purity water permeate stream by evaporation through the membranes and into a retentate stream containing a higher concentration of dissolved components than present in the feed. In this process the permeate vapour that is extracted from the fluid separation module is compressed by an external compressor to increase the temperature of the vapour higher than the temperature of the feed entering the separation module. Heat from the permeate vapour at the elevated temperature is transferred back to the incoming feed fluid mixture entering the fluid separation module in a condenser/heat exchange.
