Patent ID: 7862715
Filing Date: 2011-01-04
Classification: B01J,C02F

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for removing undesirable components from contaminated solution with a purifying material that is adapted to attract both desirable and the undesirable components, the contaminated solution including both the desirable components and the undesirable components, the desirable components including multivalent cations and the undesirable components including monolvalent cations, the apparatus comprising: an input line for receiving the contaminated solution; a purifying portion connected to the input line, wherein the purifying portion is configured to co-currently transport the purifying material and the contaminated solution to a separator while the purifying material combines with the undesirable components from the contaminated solution so as to generate both partially treated solution and partially loaded purifying material loaded with undesirable components, the partially treated solution including the desirable components and the undesirable components, but the ratio of undesirable to desirable components in the treated solution is less in the treated solution than in the contaminated solution; a counter-current regenerator coupled to the separator, wherein the counter-current regenerator is configured to receive a regenerant and to counter-currently mix the regenerant and the partially-loaded purifying material so as to partially regenerate the purifying material by partially removing the undesirable components from the purifying material and thereby allowing the purifying material to attract additional undesirable components; and a flow controller positioned in a flow path between the counter-current regenerator and the purifying portion and adapted to control a transport rate of the purifying material so as to provide a stoichiometric ratio of purifying material to the contaminated solution to achieve a desired level of purification, wherein said flow controller is configured to positively transfer partially regenerated purifying material from the counter-current regenerator to the purifying portion and to positively transfer a partially treated solution from the purifying portion to the counter current regenerator to automatically rinse the partially regenerated purifying material exiting the counter current regenerator.