Membrane & Separation Technology News articles from November 2000

Membrane & Separation Technology News archives from November 2000

BIOMEDICAL AND BIOMEMBRANES Controlled Destruction Releases Compounds.
November 1, 2000... University of Illinois scientists have developed stackable, multilayer, organic thin films that can be selectively destroyed under specific environmental conditions. With applications from materials science to medicine, the material has great...

Polymers Mimic Human Cells.
November 1, 2000... University of Michigan (UM) chemists, under the direction of Mark E. Meyerhoff, have developed polymers containing minute, fumed silica particles that release low levels of nitric oxide gas, which are used in the human body to relax blood...

Antibacterial Polymer Delivers Antibiotic.
November 1, 2000... University of Washington (UW, Seattle, WA) researchers have developed a method of crafting medical implants from an antibacterial polymer that could prevent thousands of patients from dying of hospital-acquired infections each year. The...

ADVANCED FILTRATION Promega Grants Wizard Rights.
November 1, 2000... Promega Corp. (2800 Woods Hollow Rd., Madison, WI 53711-5399; Tel: 608/274-4330, Fax 608/277-2516) and Beckman Coulter, Inc. (4300 N. Harbor Blvd., P.O. Box 3100, Fullerton, CA 92834-3100; Tel: 714/871-4848, Fax: 714/773-8283) have agreed to...

PVC Blocks Ultrafine Viruses.
November 1, 2000... Pall BioPharmaceuticals (2200 Northern Blvd., East Hills, NY 11548; Tel: 800/717-7256 or 516/484-5400) has designed a virus filter to remove ultrafine viruses as small as 20 nm during the manufacture of biotherapeutic drug products. The...

Silver Salts Assist Petrochemical Process.
November 1, 2000... Researchers at Membrane Technology and Research (MTR) are developing membranes to expand the capabilities of the company's VaporSep gas separation technology to include extraction of olefins from paraffins. VaporSep is a membrane-based...

REVERSE OSMOSIS: Performance Changes with Polyamide Structure.
November 1, 2000... Scientists at Chung-Ang University (221 Huksuk-dong, Dongjak-ku, 156-756, Seoul, Korea; Tel: 82-2-820-5222, Fax: 82-2-825-4988), Seoul National University, and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology have developed thin film composite...

NOVEL: Hybridized Process Wins Award.
November 1, 2000... Traditional biological wastewater treatment processes have difficulties treating bio-refractory organic pollutants in waste streams that contain high concentrations of inorganics. A novel hybrid process, combining liquid-liquid extraction and a...

INDUSTRY NEWS: Millipore Splits into Separate Companies.
November 1, 2000... Millipore Corp. will separate into two distinct companies by making its microelectronics business an independent, publicly traded entity. The new company, temporarily dubbed Millipore Microelectronics, will focus all of its efforts on the...

Micronics, Honeywell Monitor Blood.
November 1, 2000... Micronics and Honeywell will collaborate in the development of the first wrist-wearable blood-cell monitoring device in a project funded by a three-year, $4.4 million Department of Defense contract. The hematology lab-on-a-chip will combine...

Red Cross Stops Blood Filter Pact.
November 1, 2000... The American Red Cross has terminated its supply contract with HemaSure, Inc. for the company's r\LS Red Blood Cell Filtration System. The American Red Cross entered into the three-year contract in July of 1999. In April 2000, the Red...

Zenon Awards Technology Prize.
November 1, 2000... Zenon Environmental, Inc. has presented Wenjun Liu the first Zenon Membrane Technology Prize for his innovative research on extractive membrane bioreactor treatment for wastewater. The recipient of the $10,000 grant is a Ph.D. candidate at...

Ionics Inks $10M Power Plant Pact.
November 1, 2000... Ionics, Inc. has been awarded a $10 million order to develop a water treatment system for a 1,100-mW, combined-cycle gas turbine power plant outside of San Marcos, Texas. The system, contracted by Hays Energy LP, will eliminate wastewater...

GAS SEPARATIONS: Model Determines Operating Conditions.
November 1, 2000... University of Calabria and IRMERC-CNR, researchers have formulated a model to determine the right operating conditions for commercial levels of water carbonation. In membrane contactors, the membranes (microporous and hydrophobic) are...

INEEL Sweeps Smokestacks Clean.
November 1, 2000... Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL, Idaho Falls, ID) researchers interested in tidying up the earth's atmosphere are devising ways to sweep up excess carbon dioxide - a potentially problematic greenhouse gas - and...

MARKETS: Alfa Laval Touts Cheaper Desalination.
November 1, 2000... Alfa Laval has increased the economical viability of desalination by using plate heat exchangers. According to Alfa Laval Marketing Manager Carlos Legorreta, "The potential for cost reduction will allow distillation on plates to become...

In the News.
November 1, 2000... Ionics EDR Approved for Dutch Drinking Water. Ionics, Inc. (Watertown, MA) has received KIWA-ATA certification of its electrodialysis reversal (EDR) membrane components at Aquatech 2000 in Amsterdam. KIWA certification verifies that Ionics' EDR...

Personnel Updates.
November 1, 2000... Zenon Names COO/CFO. Following significant expense increases last year, the board of directors of Zenon Environmental, Inc. (Ontario, Canada), a global leader in membrane water treatment, has approved a new management team along with a cut in...

Recent Patents.
November 1, 2000... Pacific Biometrics Patents Noninvasive Glucose Monitor. In U.S. Patent 6,102,872, Pacific Biometrics describes a noninvasive glucose-monitoring device and a method of noninvasively monitoring glucose that includes the steps of stimulating the...

CALENDAR.
November 1, 2000... December 14-19, 2000, Characterization, Performance, and Fouling of Water Treatment Membranes, Honolulu HI. Contact: American Chemical Society; Tel: 775/784-6942, Fax: 775/784-1390. May 1-4, 2001, 14th Annual Conference & Expo, Science and...

INDUSTRY INSIGHT Membranes in Medical Devices.
November 1, 2000... By S. Mookie Sternberg, Ph.D., Baxter Distinguished Scientist, Baxter Healthcare Corp., Round Lake, IL 60067 The choice of membrane for a given device is obviously dictated by the application for which the device is needed. Membrane...

Hemodialysis.
November 1, 2000... This is the largest use of membranes not only in the medical device area, but in any membrane application. It is estimated that about a billion square feet of membrane are used in the application. One can easily count up to a 100 different...

Oxygenation.
November 1, 2000... During open-heart surgery, blood must be oxygenated extracorporeally. One way of blood oxygenation is simply bubbling oxygen through the blood; however, this causes cell destruction and protein denaturation. When a membrane is placed between...

Plasmapheresis.
November 1, 2000... In its pure form, this is a process where whole blood is separated to a cell fraction and plasma fraction. All blood cells are found in the cell fraction. The plasma is a straw-color liquid, which contains all the blood proteins. The...

Diagnostics.
November 1, 2000... The purpose of the application is to detect the existence or absence of a target molecule (ligate) in a patient sample and in some cases quantify it. Typically, another molecule will be available that exhibits affinity toward and a binding...

Leukofiltration.
November 1, 2000... The leukocyte filter is not a membrane per se, but a mat of fibrous layers, typically graded from low fiber density to higher fiber density from entry to exit. The most common fiber used is polyester (PET, PBT), and cellulose acetate to a...

IV Filters.
November 1, 2000... Filters were incorporated in IV sets to reduce or eliminate particulate matter that may cause trauma. Only about 10% of all sets contain filters. The filter contains two different membranes: one hydrophilic, through which the IV solution flows...