Page 4 - Water and Fluid Separation News

Researchers from the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction are zeroing in on public toilets in Europe to identify drug use patterns across the continent. Over the past decade, sewage plant wastewater has been a top source for monitoring drug consumption. However, due to the rising number of new psychoactive substances on the market, scientists have had to come up with new ways to identify suspicious chemicals more effectively. In a recent publishing entitled “Assessing illicit drugs in wastewater”, the EMCDDA expounds on new methodologies for scanning through sewage water to identify drug use trends in different cities. Part of the report includes references to studies that sourced and analyzed wastewater directly from public toilets where drug use was thought to be common. According to the paper, this technique allows researchers to carry out more geographically detailed analyses as well as identify drugs whose uses are still unknown. Through the traditional method, water

Sterlitech teamed up with Senior Engineering Students at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona) to evaluate the design of a tangential flow Air Gap Membrane Distillation (AGMD) test cell. Membrane Distillation (MD) is a thermally driven membrane separation technique used for desalination. In this process, the driving force is the difference in the vapor pressure on both sides of the membrane, where permeate travels through a hydrophobic membrane in a vapor phase. Advantages of MD process over conventional distillation or pressure driven separation processes are:

• Low Operating Pressures
• Low Operating Temperatures
• Less Susceptibility to Fouling

These all translate to lower energy requirements that make MD an energy efficient separation process. Scope of the Project: A bench-scale tangential flow test cell is configured in this project where feed solution is circulated tangentially to the membrane in the feed channel on one side and the coolant solution is circulated

North American Membrane Society (NAMS) annual meeting was held in Bellevue, WA, during the last week of May. Due to the great collective interest shown by the membrane research community, only 40% of the abstracts submitted to the meeting could be accepted for podium presentation, which made up to about 140 talks! In addition, about 140 posters were presented in 5 parallel poster sessions. As a comparison, there were about 144 talks and 160 posters in NAMS 2015 meeting at Boston. Conference attendees were primarily researchers from industry and academia.   Research was focused on the following topics:

• Membrane Distillation (MD)
• Biomimetic membranes
• Desalination and potable water production
• Gas separation
• Design and processing of polymeric and inorganic membranes
• Designs and processing of composite and hybrid membranes
• Novel membrane materials

Other topics of interest included:

• Pervaporation
• Membrane transport: theory and characterization tools
• Water treatment, reclamation, and reuse
• Energy

Forward Osmosis has been known and exploited as a separation process for a variety of applications including water and wastewater treatment, food processing, and power generation since the early 1960’s. Can this process also be applied for air de-humidification? Recent publications and patents have demonstrated that combining capillary condensation with osmosis separation through a semi-permeable membrane, introduced as Osmotic Membrane Dehumidification process, can be an efficient de-humidification method.

In the Osmotic Membrane Dehumidification process, a humid air stream is brought into contact with a semi-permeable membrane, which separates the air stream from an osmotic solution, i.e. draw solution (draw solution is generally a salt solution). Water vapors in the air stream condense by capillary condensation in the pores of the membrane and the condensed water is transferred into the draw solution by osmosis.

Unlike the conventional de-humidification processes, in this process there

Global distribution has begun for Aquaporin Inside Forward Osmosis Membrane, and Sterlitech is proud to announce it is one of the first to offer the breakthrough product. Developed by Aquaporin A/S of Denmark, the new membrane is specifically designed to reduce the costs of water purification by harnessing a remarkable mechanism found in all forms of life on Earth. “Aquaporin proteins make it possible for plants to draw water through their roots and for kidneys to filter wastes in our bloodstream,” said Sterlitech President Mark Spatz. “By synthesizing these proteins and incorporating them into a membrane, Aquaporin A/S has created a membrane product with uniquely high selectivity and flow rates.” Discovered in 1992 by Peter Agre, aquaporins are protein structures integrated into the cell membranes of all living organisms and are critical for controlling water concentrations. The unique structure of these proteins allows water molecules to rapidly move in and out of a cell while denying

Aquaporin A/S and their Aquaporin Inside Membrane were featured last month in CNN's series, Make Create Innovate.  As you may recall from this article here, Aquaporin is a customer of ours which is working to perfect membranes made with aquaporins, a protein pore which is found in all living things and only allows water molecules to pass through it. In the video from CNN, we get to see the Aquaporin Inside membrane at work inside of an acrylic CF042 FO cell as it's used to draw water out of coffee.  This is a great video to watch if you want to see forward osmosis in action and check out an amazing innovation.