Pillar 02 · Membrane Technology
Membrane separation,
productized.
When RO can't handle the TDS, when distillation can't break the azeotrope, when evaporators lose on energy, that's where we live. Three productized platforms, built on five base membrane processes, with project data going back to 1999 and 50+ years of combined team experience behind them. AQUA-SEP® treats the hardest aqueous feeds. VOC-SEP® captures and recovers solvents. AZEO-SEP® breaks azeotropic and close-boiling mixtures distillation cannot. Research, pilot validation, and code-stamped fabrication of every system, in our own shops.
Overview
See the technology in action.
A short look at how our membrane systems separate what other processes cannot, from feed to recovered stream.
Productized platforms
What we sell.
Three platforms cover the applications customers buy most. Predictable performance, fixed footprint, accelerated delivery, and engineering documentation in the proposal package. Each is built in our own shops on top of one of the five base processes below.
Productized platform
AQUA-SEP®
The factory-packaged vacuum membrane distillation platform for industrial water recovery.
AQUA-SEP® is Petro Sep's vacuum membrane distillation platform, standardized into a system you can size and quote. The feed runs along one side of a hydrophobic, microporous membrane while the other side is kept under vacuum; water passes through the pores as vapor, and almost all of the dissolved salts stay behind. Petro Sep's brochure says it can treat reject brine from desalination plants and from RO and seawater RO (SWRO) plants, and toxic wastewater.
Read the system page
Productized platform
VOC-SEP®
Hydrophobic pervaporation, packaged to remove and recover VOCs from water.
VOC-SEP® turns volatile organic compounds from a disposal liability into a recoverable raw material. Built on Petro Sep's hydrophobic pervaporation membranes, the system removes VOCs at 0.2 to 10% concentration from industrial process streams and wastewater, recovers 100% of the separated components for reuse, and returns them to the front-end process, with low maintenance and operating cost.
Read the system page
Productized platform
AZEO-SEP®
Breaking azeotropes that distillation cannot, cleanly, with no entrainer.
AZEO-SEP® dehydrates ethanol, isopropanol, and other organic solvents past the azeotropes that conventional distillation cannot break. Where alternatives need an entrainer (benzene, cyclohexane), a third column, and the storage and disposal that comes with them, AZEO-SEP® uses pervaporation membranes selected for the specific solvent. The result is fuel-grade, pharma-grade, or chemical-grade purity in a compact skid.
Read the system page
Base technologies
How they work.
Engineering-grade reference for the five membrane processes our platforms run on. Each page covers the working principle, the specs, the industries where it applies, and, where it helps, a comparison against alternative technologies (RO, distillation, evaporation). All membrane plants are fabricated in our own shops, see how we build them.
Vacuum Membrane Distillation
Membrane distillation under vacuum, built as AQUA-SEP®, for brines, RO reject and high-salinity wastewater.
Specs and applications
Pervaporation
Selective separation of liquid mixtures, including the azeotropes that distillation cannot break.
Specs and applications
Vapor Permeation
Vapor-phase separation for solvent dehydration and VOC recovery in chemical and pharmaceutical operations.
Specs and applications
Solid-Liquid Separation
Recover the water and the solids from a stream, using membrane distillation.
Specs and applications
Zero liquid discharge (ZLD) systems
Hybrid ZLD trains built around AQUA-SEP® vacuum membrane distillation, from pretreatment to salt.
Specs and applications
In three dimensions
See the technology, not just the spec.
Turn the membrane module and the full rack in your browser, then step through the renders and cutaways that show how a feed stream becomes a purified product across the hollow-fibre bore.
Before you scale
You pilot.
Bench data tells us whether membrane separation will work on your fluid. A pilot tells us how it will run for six months on your site, with your operators, on your real feed.
We ship containerized pilot units, plumb them in, instrument them, sample them, and produce the data your CAPEX committee needs. Most pilots run three to six months. You see real numbers on real feed before a single bolt is torqued on the full-scale system.
See pilot plantsTypical pilot deliverable
Recovery and rejection numbers
Real, repeatable, independently testable on your feed.
Energy and consumables data
kWh per m³ recovered. Membrane life under your conditions.
Sized production proposal
Sized configuration, indicative budget, schedule.
A clear no, if the answer is no
We will tell you when our scope is not the right fit.
Not sure which technology
fits your problem?
Send us a sample and a few lines about your goal. We will tell you which process fits, what to expect, and what would not work. Free, no commitment.