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Volume 7, Number 2
April/May 2008
FEATURES
An Affordable Solution
Changes in the membrane market are making this technology even more attractive for industrial applications
Gregg Cummings and Val S. Frenkel
While the focus lately has been on large, publicly owned water and wastewater treatment systems, membrane filtration is expected to grow by 15% annually in the industrial wastewater treatment field by 2010. In California and other arid regions, much of this growth is the result of increasingly stringent discharge regulations, especially those involving salts in land-applied effluent. In the rest of the United States, heavy metals, nitrates, and other constituents are driving membrane growth.
The growing popularity of membranes also reflects changes in the membrane business, which has become more competitive as more providers have entered the market. At first, membranes were specialty items that varied widely from manufacturer to manufacturer. One manufacturer’s membranes would not fit in another’s process scheme, let alone in its treatment vessel. Now, membranes are becoming interchangeable commodities — especially reverse-osmosis filters — and membrane prices have fallen.
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Tough Treatment Technology
Membrane bioreactors can handle wastewater with very high salt, chloride, and total dissolved solids levels
Joseph Lala, Shannon R. Grant, and Scott J. Christian
How strong a wastewater can a membrane bioreactor (MBR) handle? That’s what FMC BioPolymer (Philadelphia) decided to find out during a recent pilot study.
FMC BioPolymer operates a plant in Cebu, Philippines, that manufactures carrageenan from seaweed. The plant was built in 1979. Until 2004, it produced a basic carrageenan product called alkaline-modified flour (AMF) that is used most commonly as a binder in pet food. In the last 3 years, the plant also has begun producing a more refined product, LFC, that is used in human food.
The manufacturing process involves using a hot (85°C to 95°C) caustic and potassium chloride solution to convert natural carrageenan into semirefined carrageenan, which has superior gel qualities. It is then washed, chopped, dried, and ground into AMF. To become LFC, AMF is bleached with hydrogen peroxide, slurry-washed, and dried. Both products then are screened, blended, and bagged.
NEWS
Drunk as a Fish
In the not too distant future, the world may have a new sustainable solution to global hunger. If so, we will have America’s beer drinkers to thank for it. Well, them and the three Colorado entrepreneurs who have figured out a way to use brewery wastewater to support fish farming throughout the world.
The entrepreneurs are all Ph.D.s from Oberon FMR Inc. (Idaho Springs, Colo.), a startup company that has developed new proprietary technology that changes ordinary wastewater bacteria into high-protein fish food. After 7 years of research and development, the technology is being tested in a pilot operation at the New Belgium Brewing Co. (Fort Collins, Colo.).
Membranes: A Growing Trend
Use of membranes, MBRs in industrial facilities on the rise
Membranes are used in an increasing number of industrial applications, from treating automobile manufacturing plant wastewater, to reclaiming water in the pulp-and-paper industry. Presenters at the Membrane Technology Conference, hosted by the Water Environment Federation (WEF; Alexandria, Va.) Jan. 27–30 in Atlanta, showcased recent industrial installations of membranes, membrane bioreactors (MBRs) and reverse osmosis (RO), while shedding light on why these applications are becoming more prevalent in the industrial environment.
The first technical session of the conference focused exclusively on membrane use in industrial settings. The session featured case studies focusing on the increasing use of industrial membranes in industry.
BRIEFS
Quick updates on news of interest to the industrial wastewater management professional.