Membrane & Separation Technology News articles from April 2005

Membrane & Separation Technology News archives from April 2005

REVERSE OSMOSIS: Treating Water from Methane Extraction.
April 1, 2005... JMC Engineering, a Montana firm specializing in water treatment, has developed an affordable RO process for treating contaminated groundwater produced during coalbed methane extraction. The RO permeate can be reclaimed for other applications,...

MegaMagnum System Saves Space, Expense.
April 1, 2005... Koch Membrane Systems, Inc. (KMS) will debut the MegaMagnum Water Treatment System at the annual American Water Works Association conference to be held in San Francisco, CA, June 12-16. The pre- engineered, packaged system is designed to use...

NANOFILTRATION: SR2 Lowers Operating Costs.
April 1, 2005... Koch Membrane Systems has launched the Fluid Systems TFC (thin film composite) SR2 spiral, an energy efficient NF membrane element that lowers operating costs for a wide variety of selective rejection applications, including water softening,...

ULTRAFILTRATION: Simpler Scaling And Development.
April 1, 2005... Millipore Corp. has introduced the Cogent M Tangential Flow Filtration (TFF) system, a manual bench top system designed for the purification of biopharmaceutical products up to ten liters. The Cogent M system is suitable for process development...

KTAcrossflow Links Bio Filtration Steps.
April 1, 2005... GE Healthcare has launched the KTAcrossflow, the first fully automated small-scale crossflow filtration system designed to simplify membrane selection and process development at the biopharmaceutical research scale. KTAcrossflow links the...

Solvent Mixtures Dried Faster, Cheaper.
April 1, 2005... At PITTCON 2005, Horizon Technology introduced the DryVap Concentrator, a system that provides fully unattended bench-top drying and concentration of solvent extracts. The system is the second in Horizons product line to incorporate the...

Helical Configuration Optimizes Flow.
April 1, 2005... Bucher Guyer, a Swiss manufacturer of food processing equipment, has patented a crossflow membrane element fabricated by twisting a number of tubular membranes around a common axis in a helical manner to form a disk shaped module. The membranes...

MEMBRANE BIOREACTORS: Lower Pressure AirLift System.
April 1, 2005... X-Flow has received a large order for its tubular membrane technology for a municipal membrane bioreactor (MBR) project in the Netherlands. The wastewater plant will be based on X-Flows recently launched out of basin Airlift tubular membrane...

BIOMEDICAL & BIOMEMBRANE MDF Removes Middle Molecules.
April 1, 2005... Nephros Inc. is commercializing a trio of hollow fiber hemodiafiltration (HDF) products that deliver therapy to end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients. The OLpur MD190, OLpur H2H and OLpur NS2000 dialyzers incorporate the companys mid-dilution...

CATALYTIC: Gold-Palladium Nano- Particles Remediate TCE.
April 1, 2005... Engineers at Rice University and Georgia Tech hope to develop catalytic membranes fabricated from gold and palladium nanoparticles for remediating the pervasive groundwater contaminant trichloroethene (TCE). If successfully developed, the...

ELECTROCHEMICAL: Applications Expand for Eurodia Technology.
April 1, 2005... Representatives of Eurodia report that applications for the companys conventional electrodialysis (ED) membranes and its bipolar ED membranes are finding use in new applications and industries. R&D Director Florence Lutin tells MST that...

INDUSTRY NEWS: DOE Funds Clean Coal Projects.
April 1, 2005... The Department of Energy (DOE ) is funding 32 clean coal research projects in four program areas to advance the goal of developing coal-fired zero emissions power plants. Five of the awards will go to membrane-based projects falling under the...

Price Rises for RO, NF Products.
April 1, 2005... Hydranautics announced a 6% general price increase for all RO and NF products, effective on orders placed after February 28, 2005. The company provided price protection for the firm to complete orders received by March 31, 2005 for shipment...

Mykrolis and Entegris Merge.
April 1, 2005... Mykrolis Corp. and Entegris, Inc., two leading suppliers to the global semiconductor industry, have inked an agreement to combine in a merger-of-equals transaction that creates a combined company valued at $1.3 billion. The company, which...

CALENDAR.
April 1, 2005... June 11-15, 16th Annual North American Membrane Society Meeting- NAMS 2005, Westin Hotel, Providence, RI. Contact: Paula Pair, Meeting Secretary, Centennial Conferences, 901 Front Street, Suite 130, Louisville, CO 80027; Tel: 303/499-2299, Fax:...

BUSINESS.
April 1, 2005... Zenon to Purchase German Firms, Acquire New Product Lines. Through a wholly owned German subsidiary, Zenon Environmental (Oakville, Ontario, Canada) has agreed to acquire two German firms, Alpha Plan GmbH and Saxonia BioTec GmbH, both located...

RESEARCH.
April 1, 2005... Engine Powers Desal System without Electricity. Deluge, Inc. (Phoenix, AZ) is commercializing a novel engine that uses one- tenth the power of electric motors typically used for RO water desalination. The thermal hydraulic engine works on the...

PATENTS.
April 1, 2005... Hollow Fibers Degas Printer Cartridge Inks. Mitsubishi Rayon Co., Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) has patented (U.S. 6,860,922) a hollow fiber membrane and process for removing dissolved gases from inks in ink-jet printer cartridges. In ink-jet printers,...

PRODUCTS.
April 1, 2005... Packaged Plant Designed for Oily Mop and Wash Water. Sanborn Technologies (Walpole, MA) has introduced the UFV 250/500T ultrafiltration system as a complete packaged plant to minimize the disposal of oily wastewater from manufacturing...

FINANCIAL RESULTS.
April 1, 2005... Polypore Sales Up 11% for Year. Polypore International, Inc. (Charlotte, NC) has reported pro forma net sales for the year of $490.4 million, an 11% increase compared to sales of $441.1 million in fiscal year 2003. Net sales for the fourth...

INDUSTRY INSIGHT: MF and RO Applications In Water Purification.
April 1, 2005... By Peter Cartwright, Cartwright Consulting, 8324 16th St., Minneapolis, MN 55425-1742; Tel: 952/854-4911, Fax: 952/854-6964. The pressure driven membrane technologies microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF) and...

Testing.
April 1, 2005... In general, every stream must be tested to obtain the following design factors: * Optimum membrane element configuration * Total membrane area * Specific membrane polymer * Optimum pressure * Maximum system recovery * Flow conditions *...

Stream Chemistry.
April 1, 2005... * Total solids content * Suspended (TSS) * Dissolved organic (TOC, BAS, COD, BOD) * Dissolved inorganic (TDS)

Chemicals of concern.
April 1, 2005... * Oxidizing chemicals * Organic solvents * Saturated solutes * pH * Operating temperature * Osmotic pressure as a function of system recovery * Variation in chemistry as a function of time. To generate the necessary design data, several...

Cell Testing.
April 1, 2005... Cell test devices are available for purchase (or through a consulting engineering firm skilled in the art), which evaluate small sheets of membranes on the stream to be processed. Typically, the sheet is placed between two stainless steel...

Applications Testing.
April 1, 2005... This testing approach utilizes a full-sized membrane element in a test unit capable of operating similar to a production unit. Since the data from this testing will be used to scale up the design to full size, it is essential that the membrane...

Advantages:.
April 1, 2005... * Fast * Provides scale-up of data (flow, element efficiency, osmotic pressure as a function of recovery, pressure requirements, etc.) * Can provide an indication of membrane stability.

Disadvantages:.
April 1, 2005... * Does not reveal long-term chemical effects * Does not provide data on long-term fouling effects.

Pilot Testing.
April 1, 2005... Usually this involves placing a test machine (such as that used in the applications test) in the process operating continuously on a "side stream" for a minimum of 30 days.

Advantages:.
April 1, 2005... * Accomplishes all of the functions of the applications test plus provides long-term fouling and stability data.

Disadvantages:.
April 1, 2005... * Expensive in terms of monitoring and time requirements