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Of all the membrane disc filter accessories that we carry, the static eliminator probably gets the most technical questions. Whereas items like the cytoclear glass slides and stainless steel membrane filter tweezers are very straightforward in their purpose and operation, how a static eliminator works may not be as intuitive. Static eliminators are used on Polycarbonate or Polyester membranes when they are going to be subject to precise analytical balance measurements that could be affected by the presence of static or dust particles on the filter. Static eliminators can perform this function in a few different ways, such as by using alternating current or by using small amounts of a radioactive element to remove electrons. The static eliminators that we carry use a naturally occurring radioactive element called Polonium-210 (It was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie and named after Marie Curie’s homeland of Poland) in order to function. This type of static eliminator is referred to

This study from the ACS journal Applied Materials & Interfaces has been making headlines recently for introducing a new way to purify drinking water. Scientists from Rice University have created a new filter material, dubbed “super sand,” by coating regular sand with the nanomaterial graphite oxide. Their tests have shown that this super sand has the potential to be a cheap form of water filtration for developing areas.

The use of sand as a water filter isn’t anything new – it’s actually been done for around 6,000 years. However, by combining this old world technique with cutting edge nanotechnology scientists have made sand filtration at least 5 times more efficient. Their report indicates that the modified sand adsorbed 6 times the amount of liquid mercury and 5 times as much heavy metal and organic dye than regular sand. In addition to the improved filtration capacity, there are other benefits of super sand that increase its prospects for real-world integration. The materials needed

If you fastidiously watch “Through the Wormhole” like I do, chances are you’ll find this application for silver membrane filters fascinating – they’re being used to assist in the collection of antimatter! Now if your main reference for antimatter is a certain Dan Brown novel, you should know that separating and collecting antimatter is a much, much more difficult process than the entertainment industry would have you believe. In fact, “If you take all the antimatter produced in the history of the world and annihilated it all at once, you wouldn't have enough energy to boil a pot of tea,” according to Harvard physicist Gerald Gabrielse. Professor Gabrielse is a leader in antimatter trapping methodology and a co-author of the paper Pumped Helium System for Cooling Positron and Electron Traps to 1.2 K, which details how our filters are used to trap antimatter.

Antimatter is composed of the exact opposite particles (particles of the same mass but opposite electrical charges) as its traditional

Biogas, a form of renewable energy this is produced through, among other things, animal and human waste (hey, it’s not like you were using it) is one of several developing energy sources whose proponents are exploring membrane separation techniques to improve their purification process. A recent study published in the “Applied Chemistry – A Journal of the Society of German Chemists” experimented with a new method of membrane separation called the “condensing-liquid membrane” (or CLM) in an effort to enrich raw biogas, which typically contains between 50-80% methane, to natural gas quality (at least 95% methane content), with favorable results. Common membrane materials like Cellulose Acetate and Polyimide have been tried for this application with some success, but the problem is that they can be ruined by the aggressive gases that are present in raw biogas, such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. The CLM is a liquid (water in this case) layer that condenses on a porous hydrophilic

Cruising around the Scandinavian coastline in November might not sound like the most ideal place to conduct an environmental impact study, but for Norway’s Institute of Marine Research it was necessary in order to investigate the levels of anthropogenic particles in the Skagerrak strait. As you can imagine, this setting presented some unique challenges for the research team. In order to gather and analyze microscopic samples from this body of water, which is located between Norway, Denmark and Sweden, researchers had to come up with some new sampling methods and fashion their own equipment to solve problems that had plagued previous studies.

One key obstacle that these scientists needed to overcome was how to distinguish between anthropogenic particles, which are man-made bits of matter that impact the environment (i.e. oil-spill droplets, asphalt, rubber tire wear, fly ash), from those particles with similar characteristics which appear naturally (volcanic ash, peat). To make this distinction,