Abstract: The following process steps are carried out in order to purify a liquid by membrane distillation, in particular to produce desalinated water from seawater or brackish water or process water: passing a relatively warn vaporising stream of liquid (retentate stream) over a porous membrane, vapour flowing via the pores of the membrane to the other side of said membrane, and condensing said vapour on a relatively cool condenser surface to give a distillate stream, said condenser surface forming the non-porous separation between a feed stream to be purified and said distillate steam, which feed stream is in counter-current with the retentate stream so that an appreciable proportion of the latent heat will be transferred via vapour to the feed stream, and a gas gap with a width of less than 5 mm being present between the porous membrane and the condenser surface.

Abstract: A reactor for carrying out gas/liquid/solid phase reactions, comprises a housing (1) which encloses an essentially closed reaction chamber (2) for holding a first liquid phase, the solid phase and a gas phase fed through the chamber; at least one feed (3), connected to the reaction chamber, for feeding a first liquid phase to the reaction chamber (2); at least one hollow fiber (4), the wall of which defines an internal flow channel for at least removing a second liquid phase, such that exchange of matter can take place between the reaction chamber (2) and the flow channel through the wall of hollow fiber (4); at least one discharge (6), connected to the flow channel, for removing the second liquid phase; at least one gas inlet (7) and at least one gas outlet (8), connected to reaction chamber (2) such that, in the use position, the at least one gas inlet (7) opens essentially into the bottom of the reaction chamber (2) and the at least one gas outlet (8) is located essentially at the top of the reaction chamb

Abstract: A composite dynamically formed membrane is described comprising an intermate layer between a solid porous supporting material and the layer of forming particles.In forming the composite dynamic membrane an intermediate layer of inert material which is either granular or fibrous, is deposited on a substantially tubular porous supporting device and on this there is deposited a second layer of an inert material, the ratio of the particle diameters between the second and the first layer being between 1:10 and 1:1,000.The fine particles for this second layer may be blended with the particles of membrane forming material.Dynamic membranes are employed in reverse osmosis, which more in particular is widely used for the desalination of aqueous liquids.

Abstract: The specification relates to thin, minute foils of a synthetic material obtained by an interfacial polycondensation reaction. More specifically, a process is described in which one reactive compound is dissolved in a non-aqueous solvent that has a boiling point below the boiling point of water. A second reactive compound is dissolved in water and the non-aqueous phase is then dispersed in the aqueous phase. A polycondensation reaction takes place at the interface of the two phases resulting in the non-aqueous phase being encapsulated by the polycondensation reaction product. The dispersion of the encapsulated non-aqueous phase in the aqueous phase is then heated to a temperature above the boiling point of the non-aqueous phase, but below the boiling point of water. The heating causes the encapsulating polymer to burst and to form thin, minute polymeric foils. The foils may be used directly or after some purification treatment for the formation of a dynamic membrane.