Membrane & Separation Technology News articles from December 2002

Membrane & Separation Technology News archives from December 2002

MATERIALS: POSS Improves Polymer Properties.
December 1, 2002... Hybrid Plastics' POSS (polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes) nanomaterials, molecules that increase strength and heat resistance when added to nearly all polymers, could be used to improve membrane properties. POSS is the first new...

REVERSE OSMOSIS: Methods Emerge for Brine Disposal.
December 1, 2002... In a paper presented at WEFTEC 2002, Black & Veatch engineers write that increasing use of RO membrane technology in water and wastewater applications is creating a waste treatment problem in the form of byproduct brine. But, they add, emerging...

ULTRAFILTRATION: PCI Extends Tubular Product Range.
December 1, 2002... Thames Water companies PCI-Memtech and PCI Membrane Systems Inc. are extending the range of polymeric UF membranes for use in their compact parallel-flow A-series modules. Encased in either stainless steel or plastic, the membranes are...

NANOFILTRATION: Economical eSpin Fibers Offer Desirable Properties.
December 1, 2002... eSpin Technologies, Inc. is developing a high-throughput process for the large-scale and economical production of polymeric nanofibers 20nm to 200nm in diameter that can be formed into thin paper-like membranes of randomly laid fibers. Membrane...

Nanopore Sensor Detects Single DNA Molecules.
December 1, 2002... A Harvard research team is developing a detector that can distinguish between two adjacent letters, spaced half a nanometer apart, on a DNA strand, by passing the genetic material through a single nanopore punched in a silicon membrane. ...

BIOMEDICAL & BIOMEMBRANE: PAMPA Improves Drug Permeability Testing.
December 1, 2002... PAMPA (parallel artificial membrane permeability assay) is an emerging high-throughput technique for mimicking the permeability of candidate pharmaceutical compounds across intestinal cell membranes. In use for about three years, researchers...

NON-SEPARATING: High Binding Arrays, Established Protocols.
December 1, 2002... Pall Corp.'s new Vivid Gene Array slides, modified nylon membranes attached to a glass substrate, offer increased surface area for higher binding and higher signal-to-noise ratios than traditional glass slides used in genetic analysis and gene...

Screening Sixteen Cytokines At Once.
December 1, 2002... Schleicher & Schuell BioScience's new ProVision Human Cytokine Array (HCA) screens biological samples for 16 different cytokines at once. ProVision HCA uses S&S's FAST Slide format, a glass slide holding nitrocellulose membranes in an 8-pad...

Breathing Life Into Produce Packaging.
December 1, 2002... Modified Atmospheric Packaging (MAP), the use of porous plastic films to control the gaseous environment surrounding edible items, is seeing increased use on fresh cut fruits and vegetables due to advancements in membrane technology. MAP...

INDUSTRY NEWS: Osmonics to Merge with GE.
December 1, 2002... GE Power Systems, a division of General Electric Co., and Osmonics, Inc. have signed an agreement to merge Osmonics into GE Water, a wholly owned subsidiary of GE in a stock and cash transaction. According to Osmonics CEO D. Dean Spatz,...

Patch Reliability Upheld in Court.
December 1, 2002... In a court case challenging the accuracy of the drug testing technology, a Massachusetts judge has found PharmChem's membrane- based sweat patches to be a reliable indicator of drug use. The case is the first in Massachusetts to dispute the...

Non-Competition Suit Yields Injunction.
December 1, 2002... A Florida Circuit Court judge has ordered Andalite Industries/Haliant Technologies and its owners Edward Closuit and Myrian Murphy to cease all business pertaining to RO and membrane- based water treatment until a pending lawsuit decides...

USF Sells First PreMPT System.
December 1, 2002... USFilter's Memcor Products has sold its first PreMPT membrane filtration system to the City of Carlsbad, CA. The containerized PreMPT incorporates Memcor's continuous microfiltration-submerged technology in a mobile, small footprint system that...

Capsules to Monitor Crypto Continuously.
December 1, 2002... The UK's Drinking Water Inspectorate has approved Pall Corp.'s Envirochek HV sampling capsule for the continuous monitoring of Cryptosporidium. The capsule is one of only two sampling products that have passed the Inspectorate's rigorous...

Samplers OK for Dialysis Water Test.
December 1, 2002... The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) has approved Millipore HPC Samplers, sterile, self- contained microbial analysis devices, for monitoring the bacterial quality of renal dialysis water and renal dialysate....

Vivendi Selling Water Stake.
December 1, 2002... Vivendi Universal has announced plans to sell its 41% stake in water and waste utility Vivendi Environnement, a holding worth about $3.8 billion. The company plans to sell half of the shares to a group of investors, possibly within the next...

Briefly Noted:.
December 1, 2002... * Lancaster, PA will be one of the nation's first cities to upgrade older water treatment plants using low-pressure membrane technology. The 12mgd Conestoga and the 24-mgd Susquehanna water treatment plants, constructed in 1933 and 1955,...

CALENDAR.
December 1, 2002... March 18-20, 2003, 9th Aachen Membrane Colloquium, Eurocongress Conference Center, Aachen, Germany. Contact: Johannes Meier, IVT- Institut fr Verfahrenstechnik der RWTH Aachen, Turmstrasse 46, D- 52056 Aachen, Germany; Tel. +49 (2) 41 80-9 54...

INDUSTRY INSIGHT: Suppression of Concentration Polarization and Fouling by Vibrationally Induced Dynamic Membrane Filtration.
December 1, 2002... By Steven Africk, President, Prodyne Corp., 30 Fenwick Rd., Newton, MA 02468 A "squeeze film" method for generating high wall shear rates independent of flow rate and inlet pressure is described and compared to conventional systems. This...

Introduction.
December 1, 2002... Concentration polarization and fouling can be minimized by high sear rates at the surface of a filtration membrane in many filtration processes. The most common means to introduce surface shear has been crossflow filtration, which typically...

Experiments.
December 1, 2002... Three experiments comparing a test device representative of the vibrationally-enhanced system with standard TFF systems are reported. The vibrational test cell included a fluid gap of 0.25mm and the upper plate was oscillated about its...

Conclusions.
December 1, 2002... The effectiveness of vibrational enhancement of membrane filtration by the squeeze film method has been demonstrated. In flux-exclusion experiments, the vibrational system appears to allow greater flux for comparable shear rates. This...