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Ge Osmonics, Inc.

Eco Technol Pty Ltd

Lien, Larry

Larry Lien

James M Tranquilla

Tony Picaro

Methods of recovering precious metals from unconventional feed water sources. In approaches, the methods use a combination of one or more of ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, and/or reverse osmosis membranes. The unconventional feed water source may be salt lake brines, coal-fired plant flue-gas scrubber blowdown water, high salinity brines, concentrated brine from desalination of seawater and the like sources. The recovered precious metals may include gold tetrachloride, gold sulfate, silver tetrachloride, silver sulfate, rare earth elements, or mixtures thereof.

Concentration of precious metals and rare earth elements

Methods of recovering lithium from a lithium source or a lithium-containing material using low pH solutions and membrane technologies to purify and concentrate the recovered lithium. The lithium sources may include a spent lithium-ion battery/cell, a lithium-containing mineral deposit, or other lithium containing materials. The processes described herein recovery the lithium after digestion of the lithium-containing material with a low pH solution through one or more acid-stable, semipermeable membranes.

Recovery of lithium from an acid solution

A method and system for recovering natural gas liquids (NGLs) from hydrocarbon mixtures and for producing a pipeline quality natural gas (NG) stream from a NG stream with a BTU content greater than about 1100 BTU per standard cubic foot. An NG or petroleum gas stream containing NGLs is delivered to a crossflow semipermeable membrane filtration apparatus wherein the semipermeable membrane is wetted with an organic liquid to render the membrane oleophilic. The NG stream is delivered at a pressure of at least about 150 psig. NGLs permeate through the wetted oleophilic membrane at a backpressure of at least 120 psig and maintain the desirable membrane characteristics; they are collected as liquids at a pressure of at least about 15 psig. A pipeline quality, primarily methane retentate stream of not greater than about 1050 BTU/scf is produced.

Method and system for producing pipeline quality natural gas

Streams () of natural gas contaminated with significant amounts of carbon dioxide can be efficiently and economically processed to create Syngas (). An available source () of flue gas that might otherwise be dispersed into the atmosphere in conjunction with such a CO-laden natural gas stream () renders the process even more economical and efficient through the creation of multiple feedstreams () that are combined to deliver a composite near equal mixture of methane and COto a plasma reactor () or the like that will generate Syngas. When coupled with a Fischer-Tropsch reactor (), the overall process provides a particularly efficient and economical process for producing synthetic liquid hydrocarbons.

Syngas production through the use of membrane technologies

A method and a system for treating seawater to facilitate secondary recovery of petroleum from a location below a body of saline water by flooding a permeable stratum with the treated water. The system utilizes a spirally-wound cross flow semipermeable membrane cartridge incorporating a three layer membrane arrangement preferably having nanofiltration characteristics which facilitates treatment of open ocean water by a single pass without any chemical or mechanical pretreatment to result in a liquid stream of desired character that can have greater ionic strength than the input seawater, e.g. at least about 18,000 ppm of chloride ion and less than 50 ppm of sulfate ion. This surprising objective is obtained even at high operating temperatures, e.g. as high as about 70&#xb0; C., through the combination of the construction of the feed spacer and the nanofiltration character of the three layer membrane arrangement.

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Solana Beach, CA, United States of America

Larry Lien