Patent ID: 7510594

Claim:
A gas-separation assembly, comprising: (a) a housing comprising a shell and at least one removable head, and enclosing an interior region; (b) a plurality of tubes, each having a first end and a second end, positioned in parallel within the housing and enclosing a plurality of gas separation membranes, each membrane having a feed side and a permeate side; (c) a tube sheet mounted in the housing and dividing the interior region into two spaces: (i) a feed gas space and (ii) a residue gas space, each in gas-transferring relationship with the feed side, the tube sheet further having a plurality of openings that hold the tubes in spaced-apart relationship; (d) a feed port in the housing through which gas may be introduced into the feed gas space; (e) a residue port in the housing through which gas may be withdrawn from the residue gas space; (f) a permeate port in the housing; (g) a permeate collection system within the housing, comprising: (i) for each tube, a permeate outlet pipe positioned at one end and adapted to capture permeate gas from the gas separation membranes within the tube; (ii) a permeate manifold positioned within the interior region, into which each permeate outlet pipe is connected, and which is itself connected to the permeate port.