PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15892012
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-02
Publication Date: 2018-06
Patent Classification: ["210", "652000"]

Abstract:
Concentration control in filtration systems and associated methods are generally described. Streams originating from upstream filters and having similar concentrations of a target minor component and/or similar osmotic pressures can be mixed and subsequently filtered within additional filters. Certain embodiments comprise recycling an output stream produced by a filter to a filter feed stream, wherein the output stream and the filter feed stream have similar concentrations of a target minor component and/or similar osmotic pressures. Such strategic mixing and/or recycling can reduce the amount of energy and/or the amount of filtration medium surface area required to achieve a desired concentration of the target minor component in a final product stream.

Claim (Index 1):
A reverse osmosis separation system for enriching a minor component of a liquid feed, the liquid feed having concentrations of a major component and the minor component, the minor component being non-ionic and having a molecular weight less than about 150 g/mole, wherein the concentration of the minor component in the liquid feed is at least about 0.1% to less than 50% by weight, the system comprising:\n a plurality of passes in a first grouping, including a first pass, wherein (i) each pass has at least one reverse osmosis membrane filtration unit, each membrane filtration unit having at least one membrane that at least partially rejects ethanol, (ii) each pass has a feed stream inlet for a feed stream, a permeate stream outlet for a permeate stream, and a retentate stream outlet for a retentate stream, (iii) the feed stream inlet of each pass, other than the first pass, is coupled to the permeate stream outlet of a preceding pass, and (iv) the retentate stream outlet, of a selected pass, after the first pass, is coupled to the feed stream inlet of the first pass; a retentate side of a particular one of the reverse osmosis membrane filtration units of the first grouping coupled to a reverse osmosis membrane filtration unit, distinct from the particular one, such that (a) a first fluid on the retentate side of the particular one is configured to be coupled to the second fluid in the distinct one and (b) the distinct one receives second fluid from the first grouping; and a feedback control mechanism configured to control the concentration of the minor component in the one of the first and second fluids having a lesser concentration thereof to match within 50% the concentration of the minor component of the other of the first and second fluids.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 50.0
- Percentile: 88.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.74242
- Patent Class: 210.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['14943905', '15752626', '10111791', '10759750', '14310287']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.767814970368001
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5607823106727994
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7471117043984808
- Mean Citation Score: 267.558742
- Max Citation Score: 424.105
- Similarity Product: 412.112768380046

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 0
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test