Membrane & Separation Technology News articles from July 2000

Membrane & Separation Technology News archives from July 2000

MICROFILTRATION: Biological Mimic Detects Pollutants.
July 1, 2000... Semipermeable membrane devices (SPMDs) placed in five Mississippi Delta streams have detected a variety of hazardous chemicals, including aldrin, chlordane, DDT and toxaphene. Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are hazardous chemicals...

MANUFACTURING TECHNIQUES Sensor Film Offers Quality Control.
July 1, 2000... Super Pressurex, a tactile-force-indicating sensor film developed by Sensor Products, Inc. may allow for more accurate quality control procedures in the manufacture of membranes and in production of integrated membrane systems. ...

GAS SEPARATIONS: DOE Offers Fouling Support.
July 1, 2000... North Carolina A&T State University student-teacher teams will develop ways to help decrease fouling that can occur in membranes used in filtration systems of fossil energy pollution control and chemical separation processes. By studying...

Greenhouse Gas Research Expands.
July 1, 2000... The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has tapped the talents of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) to study carbon dioxide filtering membranes as it expands its research into...

RO AND NANOFILTRATION NMT Turns Oilfield Waste into Asset.
July 1, 2000... New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (NMT) has developed a modified reverse-osmosis system for the treatment of water produced along with oil and gas at a lower cost than other methods available. Large volumes of salty water...

INDUSTRY NEWS: Toray Forms U.S. Venture.
July 1, 2000... Toray Industries, Inc. has agreed to form a joint venture with Ionics, Inc. and Mitsui & Co., Ltd. to make reverse-osmosis membrane elements in the U.S. Combined demand in North America, Latin America, and South America accounts for 40% to 45%...

Osmonics Responds to FDA Warning.
July 1, 2000... Osmonics, Inc. is addressing issues cited in a warning letter issued on June 7 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regarding the company's system that produces pure water for kidney dialysis. The company says the FDA letter was made...

HemaSure, Whatman Form Strategic Alliance.
July 1, 2000... HemaSure, Inc. and Whatman, plc have signed a Heads of Agreement they expect will result in a strategic alliance to commercialize products developed from Whatman's DNA isolation, detection, purification, and storage technology (FTA) for the...

BOC Edwards, Millipore Form Copper Alliance.
July 1, 2000... BOC Edwards and Millipore Corp. have formed an alliance to develop and market an integrated bath regeneration system for copper electrochemical deposition (ECD) applications in the semiconductor industry. Using organic by-product removal...

Pall Unveils Aria System.
July 1, 2000... Pall Corp. launched its small-flow Aria water filtration systems at the American Water Works Association Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado, last month. The advanced membrane filtration systems remove pathogens such as E. coli,...

Red Cross Automates Blood System.
July 1, 2000... The American Red Cross and Transfusion Technologies Corp. have signed a commercial agreement for initial use of Transfusion Technologies' blood collection and processing systems in American Red Cross blood collection centers. The agreement is...

MARKETS AND APPLICATIONS Annual Chlor-Alkali Analysis Completed.
July 1, 2000... Chemical Market Associates, Inc. (CMAI) has completed the 2000 World Chlor-Alkali Analysis. Developed annually, the analysis is a multi-client market study covering the world markets for chlorine, caustic, and their major derivatives. ...

Lousy Sheep Put to the Test.
July 1, 2000... Australian sheep may soon be tested for lice using a sophisticated immunochromatographic test that incorporates a nitrocellulose membrane. Farmers can find it difficult to detect lice at shearing time and are often unsure whether their flocks...

FUEL CELLS: Thor To Build Zero- Emissions Buses.
July 1, 2000... Thor Industries, Inc. will build the world's first commercially viable, fuel-cell-powered, zero-emissions transit buses in an exclusive alliance with International Fuel Cells, Inc.(IFC), a United Technologies company, and ISE Research. The...

BIOMEDICAL AND BIOMEMBRANES Pathogen Inactivation Closer to Market.
July 1, 2000... Pall Corp. is collaborating with V.I. Technologies, Inc. to be the first to commercialize pathogen inactivation technology for red cells, the most frequently transfused blood component. VITEX Vice President John Chapman will present details on...

EMSL Detects Biological Agents.
July 1, 2000... Researchers at the William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) have found that microdialysis membranes may help them improve detection speeds. The detection and identification of potential biological agents for...

MEMBRANE RESEARCH: DOE Selects First Vision 21 Projects.
July 1, 2000... Siemens Westinghouse and Eltron have been named as part of the Department of Energy's (DOE) first selections for the Vision 21 Program. Vision 21 is an effort to develop an energy system that could be commercially ready by the year 2015. ...

INDUSTRY INSIGHT The Ceramic Membrane Future.
July 1, 2000... John L. Short, Business Unit Manager, Ceramic Filters, Coors Ceramics Co., Golden, CO 80403 My prediction in the September 1994 BCC report, "Membrane Technologies for Food Processing," was that there would be 50,000 m2 of inorganic...

Historical Perspective.
July 1, 2000... We have the nuclear industry to thank for much of the original development work in the area. Ceramic filters for liquid applications were developed as a by-product of the uranium enrichment programs in the U.S. and Europe. The original work on...

But What Exactly Is the Product?
July 1, 2000... First - The Support. Most companies supply a monolithic ceramic element, generally circular in cross-section (although one well- known product is hexagonal). The following table documents the wide variety of physical dimensions of the support...

The Honeycomb Potential.
July 1, 2000... No, this is not the title of a new book by Robert Ludlum, but I must mention the work done by various companies, notably Ceramem in the U.S. and Japanese companies. They have tried to exploit the potential of the extruded, square-channel...

Applications.
July 1, 2000... Most literature claims, simplistically, that the best feature of the ceramic membrane is resistance to high temperature and extreme pH range. In reality, there is a wide range of applications for ceramic membranes, from the simple to...

The Future.
July 1, 2000... * Competition will increase with downward pressure on prices. To compensate, innovations in membranes and supports will continue. * Low-cost and/or innovative products suppliers may show increased market share in the short term; however,...

Summary.
July 1, 2000... I think the future of ceramic membranes can be summed up as follows: Tomorrow's potential, huge; today's reality, a real need for market pull, not technology push. I would guess that today's revenues are about $30 million per year in module...

IN THE NEWS.
July 1, 2000... Ionics Dedicates Desal Plant. In Barbados, West Indies, on June 10, Ionics, Inc. (Watertown, MA) and Barbados-based Williams Industries, Inc. participated, along with local officials, in the dedication of the largest brackish water...

FUNDING & CONTRACTS.
July 1, 2000... ZENON Treats Middle East Wastewater. ZENON Environmental, Inc. (Oakville, Ontario, Canada) has been selected to supply their membrane systems for a wastewater treatment plant in the Middle East. The total value of the contract, which will be...

RECENT PATENTS.
July 1, 2000... Kiryat Weizman Eliminates Pinholes. Reuven Katraro, Charles Linder, and Mara Nemas of Membrane Products Kiryat Weizman (Rehovot, Israel) have described a process (U.S. Patent 6,077,376) for producing a tubular membrane assembly which solves...

SELECTED ABSTRACTS.
July 1, 2000... Pre-primed Lung. Researchers have investigated in Artificial Organs [24(2), 108-113] the possibility of pre-primed storage of an artificial lung (AL), aiming at facilitating its emergency use. Test ALs, consisting of a special microporous...

CALENDAR.
July 1, 2000... October 25-27, The Conference on Electro-Membrane Processes and Bipolar Membrane Processes, University of Twente and the Membrane Application Centre Twente, The Netherlands. Contact: Wim Boeken, Membrane Application Centre Twente, P.O. Box...