Page 59 - Blog
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February 02, 2012
In a case of good news/bad news for industrial workers, OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) is getting a budget increase for 2012, but the money comes with a delay on a proposal that would further limit workers’ exposure to carcinogenic silica dust. The backstory: Last February OSHA sent a proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget that called for a reduction in the silica PEL¹ (Permissible Exposure Limit), which would be the first change to this regulation since the 1960’s². The plan was to get the approval of the OMB and then open up the proposal to public debate after 90 days, but one year later and OSHA is still waiting. The reason for the snag is most likely because of concerns raised by the industries that would be financially affected by stricter controls. Some opponents of the new OSHA proposal argue that the government needs to do a better job of enforcing the current rules before making any changes to the exposure level. Congress seems to
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January 31, 2012Last week we announced in our newsletter that we would be including free Sterlitech water bottles or coffee mugs in with online orders until Feb. 15th or while supplies last, and sadly for some we’ve reached the end of our supply today. Don’t fret if you missed out this time around, chances are good that we’ll be doing some more giveaways this year. Be on the lookout for upcoming promotions in our newsletter and online so you don’t miss out on the next one. In the meantime, stay thirsty my friends! Got an idea about what our next promo item should be? Shirts? Golf balls? Let us know in the comments and we’ll try to make it happen.
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January 24, 2012There is a good article in “The Scientist” this month that covers how various labs have improved the throughput for their flow cytometry applications. The piece covers some of the problems users experience with flow cytometry, namely its time-consuming nature, as well as the steps that actual users have taken to improve the process for themselves. Flow cytometry is a commonly used technique for performing cell counts and diagnosing diseases including leukemia. The use of flow cytometry to analyze cells in the fields of immunology research and drug discovery is growing thanks to new equipment that streamlines the process. A few of these solutions can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, so some of this equipment probably won’t be a feasible option for everyone. A less intensive-option that can improve processing speed is to outfit instruments with a well-plate sipper that can accept microtiter plates, such as the Empore 96-Well Solid Phase Extraction plates. The best solution
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January 19, 2012
Our apologies if you were affected by our sudden office closure yesterday due to a snowstorm here in Seattle. We’re back in business today and road conditions are improving, so we don’t expect to have any other forced holidays in the near future. While there are many things Seattleites do well (software design, passive-aggressiveness), getting around in the snow is decidedly not one of them, as you can see in this YouTube video. Although in our meager defense, very little of the Seattle area sits on flat land and we do have the best soccer fanbase in the country. But until we can master the art of not braking through an ice patch, I get the feeling we will continue to be the object of ridicule from the Midwest, Northeast, and everywhere else that gets below-freezing temperatures from time to time. Stay warm out there, wherever you are!
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January 11, 2012A recently completed test in Poland found that enhancing ultrafiltration (UF) flat sheet membranes with an anionic polymer increased the membrane’s ability to purify samples of galvanized wastewater. For this experiment, the researchers tested multiple concentrations of wastewater infused with zinc, nickel, and copper ions against EW and MW designation flat sheet membranes that were infused with a polyelectrolyte, in this case polysodium 4-styrenesulfonate (PSSS) with cation-exchange properties. The result was a more-efficient metal binding agent, enabling 97-99% retention of the target metals. The EW membrane is made with Polysulfone while the MW is a modified Polyacrylonitrile known as Ultrafilic. Both designations ably treated the galvanized wastewater, but the MW membrane did have 2-3 times higher permeate flux values due to the membrane’s higher permeability. In addition to membrane separation, common treatment options for galvanized wastewater include chemical processing and the ion
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December 28, 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
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December 19, 2011In 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
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December 08, 2011
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
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December 05, 2011
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
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November 28, 2011
The Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure as described in EPA Method 1311 is designed to determine the mobility of organic and inorganic analytes present in different forms of waste. This procedure involves extracting and filtering waste samples using specific types of glass fiber filters and extraction vessels. When following this procedure, there are two kinds of vessel that can be used to extract samples for analysis, the bottle extraction vessel and the zero-headspace extraction vessel. Which type of vessel you use depends on the volatility of the analyte being sampled. Nonvolatile analytes can be tested using a bottle extraction vessel, while the zero-headspace extraction vessel must be used when testing for the mobility of volatile analytes. Examples of volatile analytes include: acetone, benzene, methanol, toluene, and vinyl chloride. The EPA Method specifies that the filter for both liquid and solid waste (the latter is filtered after solid phase extraction) be a 0.6 to 0.8
