Monthly Archives: December 2011

In the spirit of reflection we wanted to take a look at some of our favorite posts from 2011 that you may have missed, or may want to revisit for the sake of nostalgia. It’s been an amazing year for us, and we hope everyone out there has made the most of it as well! Here’s wishing you all a Happy New Year!

• Performance Improvement of Cross-flow Filtration for High Level Waste Treatment (Feb. 2011) - Tips on improving your filtration setup from the Department of Energy and Savannah River National Laboratory.
• Bean to Bar at Theo Chocolates (Mar. 2011) - Our own Kristina Shahbazian went on a tour of the only bean-to-bar, organic, fair trade chocolate factory in the USA, located right here in Seattle.
• Legionella Sampling Just Got a Whole Lot Sexier (Apr. 2011) - How the Centers for Disease Control utilized filtration sampling and social media Epidemiology to track an outbreak of legionella bacterium at Playboy mansion's infamous grotto.
• Deadliest Carch: Man-Made Pollution (Jun. 2011) - A collective of Scandinavian marine researchers created some new sampling techniques in order to perform analysis while out at sea.
• Silver Membrane Filters Play a Part in Antimatter Trapping (Jun. 2011) - A look at one of the more cutting-edge applications for our silver membrane filters - collecting antimatter in Physics research!
• Super Sand (Jul 2011) - Researchers are combining sand with a graphite oxide to create a super-efficient water filter.
• Wastewater Mistreatment (Aug. 2011) - The story of how one Canadian company's environmental mishaps led to fines and imprisonment.
• The T-SAR Approach to Study Nanofiltration Membranes (Sep. 2011) - German scientists are applying the T-SAR methodology to predict NF membrane performance.
• EPA to Create Standards for Natural Gas Wastewater (Oct. 2011) - Detailing new EPA standards being imposed on the water used in and resulting from hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking."
• NIH Issues $10,000 Challenge to Biomedical Engineering Students (Nov. 2011) - The National Institutes of Health created the DEBUT challenge to encourage students to develop new medical devices and technology.
• Crystalline Silica Exposure in Wisconsin (Dec. 2011) - The state of Wisconsin is considering tougher standards on the amount of carcinogenic dust it will subject its miners and industrial workers to.

In order to catch up with the massive backlog of chemical compounds that need toxicity assessments, the NIH, EPA, and FDA are expanding their Tox21 robot screening program to start testing a compound library of 10,000 samples. The Tox21 screening program was first conceived in 2005 and is a joint development between these three agencies. The Tox21 robot, located in Rockville, MD, was introduced earlier this year as the heart of the program and has already studied about 500 chemicals. To give you an idea of what an improvement this is, the EPA has only tested 200 chemicals since 1976. By speeding up chemical toxicity analysis the government will also accelerate the drug development process, as drug toxicity is one of the primary reasons new drugs fail.

The six-ton Tox21 robot system can test thousands of chemicals simultaneously using its vast network of tiny wells to perform high-throughput, cell-based assays at 15 different concentrations. The robot system is able to identify which chemicals have a potentially harmful reaction and then isolate them for further analysis by researchers. The economies of scale provided by Tox21 allow the program to keep the cost of testing each chemical to only a few hundred dollars.

The types of chemical compounds being tested by Tox21 are the same ones that go into food additives, medication, and industrial solvents, so the stakes for this project are high. To this end, the Tox21 team has opted for full disclosure of its results. From the Tox21 website you can see the full results of the chemicals that have already been tested, as well as the list of the 10,000 chemicals scheduled for analysis.

An added benefit of this project is that one of its mandates is to look for new chemical testing strategies that will minimize the number of laboratory animals used.

Learn more about Tox21 here.
Read the press release from NIH here.

This week the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined a carbon steel foundry in Wisconsin $95,480 for willfully overexposing their workers to crystalline silica, a known carcinogen. Ironically, this news comes shortly after a group of citizens petitioned the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNS) to adopt more stringent rules governing emissions of respirable crystalline silica.

Crystalline silica is a particularly dangerous air pollutant because it is a basic component of soil, sand, brick, granite and other common materials. As a byproduct of many everyday industrial processes like mining, construction, and glass manufacturing, it is a ubiquitous presence for some workers. Industrial processes that involve abrasive blasting or the use of sand and quartz are also sources of crystalline silica exposure, which is why many of these workers are concerned over the increasing popularity of fracking in their state. The hydraulic fracturing (AKA “Fracking”) process involves fracturing rock layers with a fluid that includes sand or ceramic material in order to extract the gas underneath. As you can tell from the description, stirring up compressed rock dust and sand particles is a definite health concern, so it’s good to see those at risk aware of it and addressing the matter.

The petitioners are asking the Wisconsin DNS to classify respirable crystalline silica as a hazardous air pollutant under their air toxics rule. Furthermore, the petitioners recommend that the DNS comply with the standard set by the State of California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment which dictates a limit of 3 micrograms per cubic meter and requires consistent monitoring and enforcement.

Determining the concentration of crystalline silica and amorphous silica by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) standards requires capturing particulates from an air sample on a 0.45 micron, 25 mm diameter Silver Membrane Filter and then analyzing the particulate matter for silica using X-Ray diffraction (XRD). See NIOSH methods 7500 and 7501 for the complete procedure.

Read the full petition by Wisconsin citizens here.
Also see this report on silica from the Wisconsin DNS.

In order to keep costs down many companies perform in-house testing on the lubricating oil and hydraulic fluid in their machinery to monitor it for particulate contamination. While most facilities can’t match the detailed analysis that an oil analysis laboratory can provide, there are some commercially available kits out there that allow users to get a good idea about the quality of their industrial fluids instantly. This process is commonly known as a “patch test” and it includes the use of MCE filters to collect and isolate debris for evaluation (“patches” is a colloquial term for filters in the oil analysis industry).

The ISO recognizes the important link between contaminated oils and component life and has published a cleanliness code as well as various standard methods, such as ISO 4406:1999, that testers can reference to determine how much particulate is acceptable. For the filtration aspect, our customers often use the sterile MCE membrane filters, which are individually wrapped and are actually less expensive than their non-sterile counterparts. Pore sizes and diameters vary by user; for a pore size larger than 1.2 micron a non-sterile MCE filter should be used (non-sterile MCE filters are available up to 8.0 microns).

Clients performing this analysis can purchase the necessary components separately, but they often purchase a pre-assembled patch test kit which may include the filters, sample bottles, forceps, filter holder, a vacuum pump, and a visual correlation chart to compare the results to the approximate ISO cleanliness code. The actual components of the patch test kit, as well as the filter specifications, are likely to vary by provider so be sure to check out what is included in yours before ordering.

Consult this article from Machinery Lubrication for more information on patch testing.
Read ISO 4406:1999
Read “Decoding the ISO Cleanliness Code”