Membrane & Separation Technology News articles from September 2003

Membrane & Separation Technology News archives from September 2003

REVERSE OSMOSIS: Bulk Water Rejected by Troops in Iraq.
September 1, 2003... For U.S. soldiers in Iraq, the distribution of bulk water produced by Army ROWPUs (reverse osmosis water purification units) is a challenge that has led the military to dispense vast amounts of bottled water instead, more than 45 million...

OCWD Tapped for NSF Water Center.
September 1, 2003... Orange County Water District (OCWD) will join the National Science Foundation (NSF) research team set up to study water purification. The collaboration, which also includes Stanford University, the University of Illinois and Clark Atlanta...

ULTRAFILTRATION: Aquosus Turns Air to Purified Water.
September 1, 2003... Using UF membranes, Hyflux Ltd.'s Aquosus converts ambient atmospheric water vapor into pure potable water in a stand-alone, on-demand generator/dispenser. Aquovate (Latin- abounding in water) technology "creates" water by chilling water...

MEMBRANE REACTORS: Wastewater Plan To Eliminate SARS Virus.
September 1, 2003... The Environmental Science & Engineering Department (ESED) of China's Tsinghua University has made a recommendation to the Chinese government that hospital wastewater be treated using closed membrane bioreactors (MBRs). ESED is responsible for...

Hydrogen-Fed Bacteria Remove Perchlorate.
September 1, 2003... Northwestern University scientists have developed a hydrogen-based membrane biofilm reactor (MBfR) that removes toxic compounds from contaminated water by converting them to harmless by-products, instead of concentrating them as waste. Applied...

Hydrogen Purified in CO2- Selective WGS Reaction.
September 1, 2003... Chemical engineers at Ohio State University are developing a CO2- selective water-gas-shift (WGS) membrane reactor to purify hydrogen (H2) for fuel cells. The process is based on facilitated transport in which the passage of CO2 through the...

GAS SEPARATION: Boeing, Airbus Launch Fuel Tank Inerting Tests.
September 1, 2003... Seven years after TWA Flight 800 blew up over the Atlantic, the world's largest commercial aircraft makers are beginning trials of a membrane-based method to reduce the risk of fuel tank explosions in near-empty tanks. In the coming weeks,...

Void-Free Composite Separates H2/CO2.
September 1, 2003... Inventors from the National Research Council of Canada have patented a polysulfone/zeolite composite membrane that separates gas pairs such as hydrogen/carbon dioxide with a higher separation factor than glassy polymers alone. Unlike other...

ELECTROCHEMICAL: Glass-Based Electrolyte Cheaper Than Nafion.
September 1, 2003... Researchers at the Nagoya Institute of Technology have devised an easily manufactured fuel cell membrane made from water and a special medical-grade glass. The glass-based electrolytes can be made considerably cheaper than fluoropolymer...

BIOMEDICAL & BIOMEMBRANE: Composite Might Make Artificial Bone.
September 1, 2003... Researchers at Isis Innovation Ltd. have developed a method of making artificial bone comprised of a collagen membrane with hydroxyapatite, a calcium phosphate ceramic, deposited within the membrane matrix. Similar to bone, a composite of...

Stent Coating Mimics Blood Cell Structure.
September 1, 2003... Medtronic, Inc. has begun the pivotal clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of its Endeavor II drug-eluting stent. The Endeavor II is made using Abbott Laboratories phosphorylcholine (PC) coating, a polymer membrane copy of a red...

NON-SEPARATING: Split Resistant Battery Separator.
September 1, 2003... Celgard has patented a multilayer microporous shutdown separator for lithium batteries thin enough to reduce electrolytic resistance, yet sufficiently strong to resist puncture and splitting. Membrane fabrication requires no polymer additives...

INDUSTRY NEWS: DOE's SBIR Funds Several New Projects.
September 1, 2003... Several membrane projects will receive DOE grants through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. In the agency's recent round of funding, 234 small businesses were awarded a total...

CA Searching for Water Sources.
September 1, 2003... In July, California State regulators, environmental groups and industry representatives met in Sausalito to examine the benefits and drawbacks of using RO for desalinating salt water for drinking. The 26 members of the state's Desalination...

GA Communities Opt for Zenon UF.
September 1, 2003... Gwinnett County is expanding its municipal wastewater plant with Zenon's ZeeWeed UF and two additional Georgia towns will install Zenon technology for their wastewater needs, one retrofit and one new treatment plant. The expansion at...

Briefly Noted:.
September 1, 2003... * Cuno Inc. (Meriden, CT) has formed a new worldwide organization for its fluid processing and healthcare businesses and promoted two senior executives to drive the divisions' global strategies. Anthony C. Doina has been promoted to Vice...

CALENDAR.
September 1, 2003... September 28-October 3, IDA World Congress on Desalination and Water Reuse, Atlantis Hotel, Paradise Island, Bahamas. Contact: International Desalination Association IDA), P.O. Box 387, Topsfield, MA 01983; Tel: 978/887-0410, Fax: 978/887-0411...

INDUSTRY INSIGHT: The Use of UTDR-Based Sensors for the Real Time Quantification of Membrane Module Fouling and Cleaning.
September 1, 2003... By Alan R. Greenberg, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Membrane Applied Science and Technology Center University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0427 and William B. Krantz, Professor of Chemical...

Measurement Principles.
September 1, 2003... UTDR is based on the propagation of sound waves whereby the sound wave velocity, c, through a medium is a function of the mass density (() and the elastic constants of the medium. At an interface between two media, the amplitude of the...

Flat-Sheet Modules.
September 1, 2003... In these experiments, desalination of a calcium sulfate solution was chosen as the model fouling system and polyamide/polysulfone composite membranes were employed. The specially designed rectangular channel RO module used in these experiments...

Spiral-Wound Modules.
September 1, 2003... Application of the UTDR methodology to a spiral-wound RO membrane module contained in a cylindrical fiber-reinforced polymer housing is complicated by the multiple reflections from the outer and inner surfaces of each layer of the multiple...

Conclusion.
September 1, 2003... The results described in this manuscript clearly demonstrate the applicability of UTDR for real-time measurement of fouling and cleaning in membrane modules. The data obtained from these studies provide a compelling rationale for the scale-up...