Patent ID: 6544423
Filing Date: 2003-04-08
Classification: B01D,B01J

Abstract:
An apparatus for substance-specific treatment of a fluid (33), includinga) a housing (35), b) an inlet arrangement (34) for introducing the fluid (33) to be treated into the housing (35), c) an outlet arrangement (38) for removing the treated fluid (37) from the housing (35), d) at least one first treatment element (1) and at least one second treatment element (2) for substance-specific treatment of the fluid, whereby each treatment element has an end (3, 7) pointing toward the inlet arrangement (34) and an end (4, 9) pointing toward the outlet arrangement (38) whereby the ends of the treatment elements are not embedded in an embedding, whereby the at least one first treatment element (1) has at least one cavity (6) formed by its walls (13), open toward the inlet arrangement (34) and closed toward the outlet arrangement (38), and the at least one second treatment element (2) has at least one cavity (10) formed by its walls (14), open toward the outlet arrangement (38) and closed toward the inlet arrangement (34), characterized in that the treatment elements (1, 2) are combined to form at least one group of treatment elements, comprising at least one first and at least one second treatment elements, the treatment elements within the group are adjacent to each other in a direction substantially perpendicular to the extent of the housing (35) between the inlet arrangement (34) and the outlet arrangement (38), wherein the walls (13) of each of the at least one first treatment element (1) and the walls (14) of each of the at least one second treatment element (2) each comprise a membrane at least in part formed from one single-layered semi-permeable membrane with a porous structure, such that the walls (13) of each of the at least one first treatment element are capable of providing a first substance-specific treatment of fluid passing there through and the walls (14) of each of the at least one second treatment element are capable of providing in sequence another substance-specific treatment of fluid passing there through, wherein the membrane is a hollow-fiber membrane, the wall (13, 14) of the hollow-fiber membrane is the wall of the at least one cavity (6, 10), and the hollow-fiber membrane is closed at one end (4, 7), and wherein the hollow-fiber membranes of a group of adjacent treatment elements are bound using textile threads into at least one hollow-fiber mat, with the hollow-fiber membranes essentially parallel to one another.