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2Membrane Technology December 2012

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Prof. R J Wakeman (Loughborough University of Technology), Prof. A Yaroshchuk (Ukrainian Membrane Society)

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Textile wastewater treatment plant is re-equipped with X-Flow membranes

Pentair X-Flow has re-equipped Go Go International Pvt Ltd’s textile

wastewater treatment plant, based in Hassan, Karnataka, India, with its Aquaflex 55 ultrafiltration (UF) mem-brane modules.

After the original membranes failed repeat-edly, the clothing manufacturer decided to change them and chose X-Flow’s Aquaflex 55 to achieve the designed water quality and quantity.

The membranes are used to provide opti-mum pretreatment for a reverse osmosis unit. According to Pentair X-Flow, they have out-standing anti-fouling properties and deliver consistent separation performance, with low energy consumption.

The use of Aquaflex 55 has lowered turbidity from 10 NTU to less than 0.1 NTU, says the company. Colour is removed and the designed permeate flow rate of 40 m3/h is achieved at a feed-pressure of 0.03 MPa (0.3 bar).

Go Go International uses the treated water as process water for textile dyeing purposes.

Contact:

X-Flow Bv, Marssteden 50, 7547 TC Enschede,

The Netherlands. Tel: +31 53 428 7350,

www.x-flow.com, www.cptholding.com

Filter combines cross-flow filtration with centrifugal separation

Dow Water & Process Solutions (DW & PS), a business unit of Dow

Chemical Co, has launched the Tequatic Plus fine particle filter, which has been developed for use in demanding water environments.

With its patented design, the filter combines the power of continuously cleaning, cross-flow filtration with centrifugal separation, in single device, which is specifically designed to handle difficult-to-treat feed-water more consistently and cost-effectively than traditional technolo-gies, says the company.

The filter is produced by Clean Filtration Technologies Llc (CFT), which became a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow in April 2012.

According to Cedella Beazley, General Manager, CFT, this filter represents a breakthrough in that it is able to tackle applications involving difficult-to-treat water – reliably handling high and highly variable total suspended solids (TSS).

‘Working together, CFT and Dow have accelerated technology development to an unprecedented level, resulting in an early mar-ket introduction of this exciting system,’ com-mented Beazley.

‘By adding the Tequatic Plus filter to its line-up, DW & PS can now meet needs for fine particle filtration, continuing its commitment to offering customers the most complete portfo-lio of advanced water purification technology.’

John Patrin, Strategic Marketing Manager, CFT, added: ‘It has the ability to filter water with high and variable solids with almost no maintenance, fouling and back-wash cycles, and there is no need for cartridge filters. This adds up to lower maintenance and consumables costs, and high uptime – all of which contrib-ute to a lower cost of ownership.’

Patrin also cites several environmental and safety advantages for customers looking to enhance the sustainability of their operations.

He said: ‘The Tequatic Plus filter requires minimal filter changes and chemicals, which minimises handling hazards and disposal, help-ing to reduce the impact on the environment.’

Applications include pretreatment for ultra-filtration and reverse osmosis, and filtration of produced water in the oil and gas sector. The product can be used as an alternative to (or a complement) traditional filtration technologies. It is currently available in various flow rates with filter cut-offs of 10–55 μm to meet specific cus-tomer needs.

‘Looking ahead, the CFT team already has in development the next generation of technology for the Tequatic Plus filter – with the goal of providing customers with a full suite of innova-tive particle filtration technologies for difficult-to-treat feed-water,’ concluded Beazley.

Contact:

The Dow Chemical Co, Dow Water & Process Solutions,

Customer Information Center, PO Box 1206, Midland,

MI 48642-1206, USA. Tel: +1 989 636 9086,

www.dowwaterandprocess.com, www.dow.com

Kits developed for quality control of in vitro stem cell cultures

EMD Millipore, the life science divi-sion of Germany’s Merck KgaA,

NEWS

December 2012 Membrane Technology3

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Water purification plant in South Korea uses Mitsubishi Rayon’s Sterapore MF elementsMitsubishi Rayon Co Ltd has announced that its Sterapore microfiltration (MF) membrane elements are being used in one of South Korea’s largest water purification plants. Based in Hwaseong City, Gyeonggi Province, and scheduled to come on stream during the fourth quarter of 2014, it will have a capacity of 91 500 m3 (24.2 million gallons) per day, but in the second phase of the project this will rise to 122 000 m3 (32.2 million gallons) per day.

Entegris’ chief operating officer is appointed CEOEntegris Inc has announced that its chief operating officer (COO) has become the firm’s chief executive officer (CEO). Bertrand Loy joined the board of the US-based firm, which makes equipment used to manufac-ture electronic circuits, on 1 November, and Gideon Argov, Entegris’ CEO, stepped down at the end of November. Argov has worked for Entegris since its combination with Mykrolis Corp in 2005, where he had served as CEO since 2004. Loy also joined the company from Mykrolis, where he was chief financial officer from 2001 until the acquisition.

ProSep awarded contracts worth C$12 million in South KoreaCanada’s ProSep Inc, which provides pro-cess systems to the oil and gas industry, has announced that its majority owned South-Korean joint venture ProSep Kolon Co Ltd has been awarded two contracts to supply a sea-water filtration package and mercury removal unit for a total value of approxi-mately C$12 million. The customers are South-Korean engineering firms selected to perform the engineering, procurement and construction of facilities for a large, liquid natural gas project located off the coast of Australia. Delivery is scheduled for the first quarter of 2014.

South West Water selects PWN Technologies’ SIX/CeraMac technology for pilot projectUK water utility South West Water has signed an agreement with Dutch firm PWN Technologies for the delivery of a pilot system that uses suspended ion-exchange and ceramic membrane techn-nology called CeraMac. The SIX/CeraMac system will be commissioned in February 2013 and will be intensively tested over an 18-month period.

has announced a new initiative with Sistemic Ltd, a UK company that pro-vides microRNA-based problem-solving services and kit-based products.

The two companies are jointly developing a proprietary monitoring methodology using Sistemic’s microRNA marker detection capabil-ity to enable consistent growth of stem cells in EMD Millipore’s Mobius CellReady platform. These markers also could be incorporated into a commercially available kit for quality control of stem cells in culture, say the firms.

‘To advance the progress of stem cell products towards clinical use, it is critical to ensure the consistency and quality of large-scale culture systems,’ said Robert Shaw, Commercial Director, EMD Millipore’s Stem Cell Initiative.

‘We are excited about partnering with Sistemic, as the company’s leading microRNA-based technology will help us continue our efforts towards the commercialisation of stem cell processing.’

Jim Reid, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Sistemic, added: ‘We are delighted to enter this collaborative arrangement with EMD Millipore. The fact that the company has chosen Sistemic as its collaborative partner is yet another validation of our ground-breaking research and ability to develop systems for qual-ity control of stem cells, and other mutually beneficial products and programmes.’

Sistemic focuses mainly on supplying micro-RNA-based problem-solving services and kit-based products to the pharmaceuticals, biotech-nology and cell therapy research, development and manufacturing markets.

Contacts:

EMD Millipore, 290 Concord Road, Billerica,

MA 01821, USA. Tel: +1 978 715 4321,

www.emdmillipore.com\stemcells

Merck KgaA, Frankfurter Str. 250, 64293 Darmstadt,

Germany. Tel: +49 6151 720, www.merck.de

Sistemic Ltd, Thomson Building, Gilmorehill,

Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK. Tel: +44 141 330 1683,

www.sistemic.co.uk

Veolia Water’s ASE upgrades desalination plant in Namibia

Aqua Services & Engineering (Pty) Ltd (ASE), a Veolia Water Solutions

& Technologies company that oper-ates in Namibia, has secured a contract to upgrade and refurbish a sea-water

desalination plant, with a capacity of 400 m3/day, based in Walvis Bay.

The project will help increase the potable water supply for domestic use, and provide enough process water for use in a local factory.

Because the sea-water has a high organic content, ASE needed to adapt an air flotation filtration system design, making it suitable for use as a pretreatment step.

‘Our engineers will introduce a vortex mixer to generate micro-bubbles, which are fed into the flocculated raw sea-water stream. This will help lighter organic particles float to the surface and allow the heavier parti-cles to settle,’ explained Christian Stöck, Managing Director, ASE.

These settled particles will be then filtered by an ultrafine filtration bed, and unlike an additional pumping step, minimal break-up of the flocculated particles will occur. This pretreatment will ensure that the raw sea-water – often affected by red tide and ‘‘sulphur erup-tions’’ – meets the required standards for effec-tive desalination using reverse osmosis (RO) membranes.

To help the plant optimise energy consump-tion, ASE is also installing an energy-recovery unit that works in conjunction with the RO membrane system.

‘This high-end technology will help the plant reduce its reliance on municipal power sources by up to 42%,’ commented Stöck.

The plant should provide much needed relief to Walvis Bay, where water scarcity has been a longstanding problem.

Contact:

Aqua Services & Engineering (Pty) Ltd, 15 Brahman

Street, Northern Industrial Area, Windhoek, Namibia.

Tel: +264 61 261 143, www.ase.com.na

H2O Innovation’s revenues increase by 41%

Canada’s H2O Innovation Inc, which develops and supplies integrated

water treatment systems based on membrane filtration technology, reports that for the first quarter of fis-cal year 2013 its revenues increased by 41% to C$9.98 million – up from C$7.1 million a year earlier.

‘In this first quarter, the fundamen-tal changes that we initiated over the last months towards an enhanced culture of project execution and management have impacted positively our gross profit. We are more than satisfied with our performance,