Patent ID: 7410580

Claim:
A hollow fiber fluid separation module comprising: an inlet for an inlet feed flow, an outlet for an exit flow; an access port for a permeate flow, a discharge port for the permeate flow; a module axis and a plurality of hollow fibers; each of the hollow fibers extending from the inlet to the outlet and comprising an interior communicating with the inlet at one end of each hollow fiber and with the outlet at the other end of each hollow fiber, with the hollow fibers wound in multiple layers to form a hollow cylindrical coil; each layer being defined on its inner side by an imaginary cylinder and having a number of hollow fibers helically wound on the cylinder with a helix angle α; the hollow fibers being in a clearance relationship with each other and equally spaced on the cylinder, with one layer differing from a neighboring layer by the fact that all the fibers of the one layer are inclined at the wind angle plus α whereas all the fibers of the neighboring layer are at the wind angle minus α; and each hollow fiber disposed at least once around the circumference of the cylinder and having a tensile strain of at least 10 g to frictionally maintain the fibers around the cylinder and sufficiently hold the fibers against the crosswise disposed fibers lying underneath without noticeably restricting the respective inner cross sections of the fibers even though the fibers are deformed at the respective intersections.