RO/UF/MF WORLD MARKET
UPDATE
January 2012
McIlvaine Company
www.mcilvainecompany.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INDUSTRY NEWS
Brazilian Filtration Company Acquired By MANN+HUMMEL
Amiad Inks US$2.85 Million Deal for Korean Steel Project
Mahle Industry GmbH Acquires InnoWa Membrane GmbH
Dow Products Win Environmental Awareness Award
NEW PLANT CONSTRUCTION NEWS
H2O Innovation India Announces Commissioning of Water System for Larsen & Toubro
Pall Corp. to Supply Advanced Water Treatment Technology for Qatar Petroleum
TECHNOLOGY/NEW PRODUCT NEWS
Nanotechnology Removes Organics from Produced Water at up to 200 Gpm
Nanopores Created by Osmosis
Oasys Water Raises $10 Million
Abu Dhabi Environment Agency Completes 22 Solar PV Powered Desalination Plants
Many projects are detailed in monthly updates under Industry Analysis in this
Report’s Chapters. Click on the links below to view information on these
projects.
CHEMICALS
ETHANOL
FOOD & BEVERAGE
METALWORKING
MINING
OIL & GAS
OTHER ELECTRONICS
PHARMACEUTICAL / BIOTECH
PULP & PAPER
REFINERIES
SEMICONDUCTOR
INDUSTRY NEWS
Brazilian Filtration Company Acquired By MANN+HUMMEL
Headquartered in Jundiaí near to São Paulo, Brazil, Fluid Brasil's 80 company
employees generated a turnover of approximately €25 million in 2011.
"Fluid Brasil enables us to expand our system expertise and gives us access to
the local water market. The company complements our portfolio very well,"
explains Alfred Weber, CEO MANN+HUMMEL. The new subsidiary serves notable
industrial national and international customers in Brazil and has approximately
600 reference projects. MANN+HUMMEL develops systems for the re-use, preparation
and conservation of water and runs research and development locations to develop
membranes and membrane technology used in water treatment, to localize products,
and to develop applications. "Fluid Brasil is an important step in the expansion
of our water business on the American continent."
"I founded and built up the company 20 years ago. Now I am really happy to be
able to pass on the company to a well-known global filtration specialist which
will enable it to grow," noted Fluid Brasil's founder and Managing Director José
Eduardo Rocha at the contract signing. "Right from the start it was very
important for me that the employees are in the hands of a reliable employer with
good future prospects."
In 2009, MANN+HUMMEL, in the course of its growth and diversification strategy,
founded the water filtration division with its headquarters in Singapore. In
2010 the company took over membrane specialist Ultra-Flo in Singapore and has
steadily expanded its water business activities in the markets of Asia-Pacific,
NAFTA and Europe.
MANN+HUMMEL plans to increase its sales to 3.4 billion euros (2010: 2.18 billion
euros) by 2018. The percentage of sales for the non-automotive business is
expected to grow more than the equivalent figure for the automotive business,
which is currently at around 87%.
Amiad Inks US$2.85 Million Deal for Korean Steel Project
It is reported that Amiad has entered into an agreement to develop the next
stage of a water filtration project at one of South Korea's largest steel
factories.
This agreement is worth US$2.85 million and is expected to be implemented in
2012. It follows the successful completion of the initial two phases of the
project, valued at approximately US$3 million, that were carried out between
2007 and 2011.
As part of the project, Amiad will install its micro fiber filtration system to
treat wastewater and protect the factory’s reverse osmosis membranes. The micro
fiber filtration process is chemical and polymer free, and designed to provide
continuous performance even under difficult water and weather conditions. It
enables Amiad to offer finer filtration that meets the standards set by membrane
manufacturers, the standard for drinking water, such as the British DWI, and
standards for tertiary treatment of wastewater. It can help save energy and
space, and reduce the need for rinse water and maintenance.
Mr Arik Dayan CEO of Amiad Water Systems said that "We are pleased to be
continuing to provide innovative solutions to the Korean industrial sector,
something we have been doing since 1993, and to be strengthening our position in
the provision of reverse osmosis membrane protection, one of our key growth
areas."
Mahle Industry GmbH Acquires InnoWa Membrane GmbH
On January 31, 2012 Mahle Industry GmbH, in Stuttgart, Germany, acquired InnoWa
Membrane GmbH in Schwaikheim.
InnoWa Membrane specializes in the development, application and manufacturing of
high-performance filter systems based on membrane technology. The company
emerged from the former EBG GmbH.
InnoWa Membrane will operate under the name Mahle InnoWa GmbH, which will be
headquartered in Stuttgart. InnoWa Membrane, a technology leader, manufactures
hollow fiber membranes for ultrafiltration. Ultrafiltration is used for the
treatment of drinking water from the rivers, surface waters, or springs, while
taking preliminary steps in seawater desalination. The technology allows even
minuscule particles such as germs, viruses, and bacteria to be filtered and
opens up additional areas of applications in home and building services
engineering.
With its industrial filtration division, Mahle Industry is an established
manufacturer of filtration solutions for a broad spectrum of industrial
applications.
"By acquiring InnoWa Membrane, we are opening up new areas of applications for
our company in the field of filtration, such as the important segment of water
treatment," said Dr Michael Matros, corporate executive vice-president and
general manager of Mahle Industry.
"This acquisition strengthens our core markets of food & beverages, power
generation, and general industrial applications," added Matros.
Mahle Industry enjoys a globally active sales network with an excellent
reputation. The integration of InnoWa Membrane into the industrial filtration
division creates a new business opportunity for Mahle Industry to focus on water
treatment.
The Mahle Group is one of the 30 largest companies in the automotive supply
industry worldwide.
With its two business units - engine systems & components and filtration &
engine peripherals, Mahle ranks among the top three systems suppliers worldwide
for piston systems, cylinder components, as well as valve train, air management,
and liquid management systems.
The industry business unit coordinates industrial activities of Mahle Group,
which includes the areas of large engines, industrial filtration, as well as
cooling and air-conditioning systems.
The aftermarket business unit serves the independent spare parts market with
Mahle products in OE quality.
In 2011, sales of Mahle were expected to reach approximately 6 billion euros
($7.83 billion).
It has more than 47,000 employees working in over 100 production plants and
eight R&D centers.
Dow Products Win Environmental Awareness Award
Dow Water & Process Solutions’ ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis products were
utilized by electronics specialist Spansion Inc in winning the 2011 City of
Austin, Texas, USA Environmental Awareness Award in the large business category.
Spansion is a provider of NOR Flash memory and had started a multi-year water
conservation project beginning in 2001. The award recognizes the efforts of
individuals and groups that are making significant contributions to the
protection and enhancement of the city’s environment.
“Part of being a responsible corporate citizen is respecting the environment,”
said Randy Blair, vice-president of Spansion’s Wafer Fab 25 Operations in
Austin. “Our multi-year water conservation project reduced our water usage by 60
percent and saves the equivalent of 7,150 soda cans full of water per minute.”
Since Spansion uses less water, Austin Water Utility requires a smaller amount
of electricity to produce more clean water. Consequently, ground-level ozone and
other ground-level pollution are reduced. “We are elated to see our customer win
the Austin Environmental Awareness Award and Spansion illustrates how good
corporate citizenship resonates across the community,” said Ian Barbour, general
manager, Dow Water & Process Solutions. “This award also reinforces how clean
water and energy are intimately intertwined and showcases how Dow products and
technologies enable our customers to increase efficiency across their
operations.”
The company installed an integrated DOW Ultrafiltration module and FILMTEC
reverse osmosis membrane system to treat more than 400 gallons per minute (gpm)
of their fabrication wastewater.
NEW PLANT CONSTRUCTION NEWS
H2O Innovation India Announces Commissioning of Water System for Larsen & Toubro
Less than 24 months after its foundation, H2O Innovation India announces the
commissioning of its first major water treatment system, for Larsen & Toubro
H2O Innovation Inc. announces today that its Indian joint-venture H2O Innovation
India Limited ("H2O Innovation India"), based in Mumbai, India, is presently
completing the water treatment system which it has designed, assembled, and
installed for the nuclear forging facility of Larsen & Toubro Heavy Engineering
("Larsen & Toubro" or "L&T"), an India company located in Hazira, Surat
Metropolitan Region, State of Gujarat, India. Combining state-of-the-art
ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis technologies, this world-class water
treatment and reuse system is unique in India. It has been designed and
assembled on site for Larsen & Toubro, an Indian multinational manufacturer
counting over 29,000 employees and generating US$ 11.7 billion in sales.
Fed with Tapi River's water, the membrane filtration system developed by H2O
Innovation India has a total capacity exceeding 7,000 m3/day (approx. 1,321 gpm).
The water purified through reverse osmosis is then used as process water for the
steel forging facility, but subsidiary treatment systems have also been provided
for steam boilers, compressors and cooling towers. The system's global recovery
rate reaches 90 percent, which reduces losses in this arid region of India. The
system uses Amiad automatic pre-filters, Dow PVDF ultrafiltration membranes and
Hydranautics high-tech ESPA2-LD reverse osmosis membranes with low fouling
potential.
Source: H2O Innovation Inc. and H2O Innovation India Limited
Pall Corp. to Supply Advanced Water Treatment Technology for Qatar Petroleum
Pall Corporation has been selected by contractor SEG (Societe d'Entreprise & de
Gestion) Qatar to supply a state-of-the-art water treatment solution for Qatar
Petroleum's (QP) premier Ras Laffan Emergency and Safety College (RLESC). The
complete Pall Aria(TM) AP-Series packaged membrane system will filter the
facility's treated sewage effluent and remove bacteria, viruses, turbidity and
suspended matter. Pall is a global leader in filtration, separation and
purification.
"Pall was selected for this project because it offers advanced membrane
technology in a very small footprint," says Steve Connor, technical project
director at SEG. "Equally important was Pall's ability to provide a complete
custom water management solution and dedicated engineering support from a local
office."
The use of membrane filtration systems for removing contaminants from water
sources across the globe continues to gain momentum. An alternative to practices
such as coagulation and flocculation and sand filtration, membrane-based systems
offer enhanced performance and operational efficiencies. Additionally, membrane
systems typically require 50 -- 70 percent less space than conventional
technologies.
The fully-automated Pall Aria packaged system for QP features hollow fiber
ultrafiltration membranes. It is designed to filter 3,500 m3/day of treated
sewage effluent that will be used for make-up water for firefighting training
exercises.
TECHNOLOGY/NEW PRODUCT NEWS
Nanotechnology Removes Organics from Produced Water at up to 200 Gpm
After 15 years of development and with research help from Rice University, a
Houston company is ready to offer its produced-water reclamation procedure to
the oilfield for treating produced water.
Molecular Filtration Inc. president Felipe Lembcke said, "Our technology is
going to be the first in the world to clean water -- I'm talking about removing
all organic presence from the water," without the use of chemicals, ultraviolet
light, electro-deposition or other processes that change the constitution of the
water itself. Lembcke said they classify organics as crude oil and every "single
element of organics including bacteria and viruses."
"Nobody can do what we can do in one single pass in removing all the organics
and leaving brine water," he added. While the process does not remove salt, that
is not an issue, Lembcke stated. "In fact, the heavier the water, the better for
them because it floats the oil."
The proprietary system basically filters water at the molecular level, Lembcke
explained, without the use of chemicals that would deionize the water. "We're
producing the same water except without bacteria and organics," he said. By
capturing the organics, particularly oil solids, these substances can be
collected and sold, adding to the producer's revenue stream. The substances are
not damaged by a chemical process.
Rice's Dr. Andrew Barron, at the school's Smalley Institute for Nanoscale
Science and Technology, which contributed significantly to the research,
compared the process to passing the water through a T shirt with large pores.
"This would separate the organics from the water." He explained that the use of
nanotechnology in those large pores would perform the separation as if they were
the tiny pores used in reverse osmosis, but would allow higher flow rates
because the pores are much larger.
Lembcke noted the filter membranes are made out of a special oxide that use
nanotechnology to reject any organic material that passes through them. He
stated that the output water quality is the same regardless of the quality of
the feed water.
The company currently has three standard units, with flow rates of 50, 100 and
200 gallons per minute. Lembcke said these rates translate to approximately one,
two and four barrels per minute. The units can be parked on a well site.
By requiring only one pass for the water through the units, Lembcke said the
process is more cost-effective than disposal. "Our costs are shockingly low," he
said. He feels this would eliminate the need for transporting water to disposal
sites, which would reduce dust and wear on oilfield roads. Plus, by collecting
the organic matter, the process would not only cost lest, it would create a new
revenue stream for producers.
Reflecting on the culmination of 15 years of research and development, Lembcke
said, "It was a very long trip. It started when I was at Washington University
in 1998" working on a degree in chemical engineering. "Finally, we were able to
achieve our goal. Our goal - the science of Molecular Filtration Inc. -- is the
science of the small particles and the large molecules. For years, we worked to
achieve one specific goal."
While educated in the United States, Lembcke was born in Peru, the offspring of
a German father and a Peruvian mother.
The company is planning a well site demonstration later this month in the Eagle
Ford Shale near San Antonio. "We want to show the world what we have
accomplished," he said.
Nanopores Created by Osmosis
Pore structures that could be used as filters, for instance, can be created in
block copolymers through the action of UV radiation and solvents. This is the
result of investigations into the phenomenon of "collective osmotic shock"
conducted at the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University in the United
Kingdom.
The experiments used film containing spherical regions of PMMA surrounded by a
PS matrix. The film was irradiated with UV light, which caused the PS to
cross-link and the PMMA to break down into low-molecular-weight oligomers. Then,
the researchers immersed the film in acetic acid, a good solvent for oligomeric
PMMA. Since the PS matrix acts as a semi-permeable membrane, the solvent
penetrates into the PMMA oligomers, generating the so-called "collective osmotic
shock" - in this case, this means that cracks and fractures suddenly appear in
the PS matrix as the PMMA swells in the solvent and the PS matrix expands.
Perforated layers with pores in the nanometer range are left behind after
removal of the PMMA.
To trigger the collective osmotic shock, the solvent used must meet three
conditions: it must dissolve the oligomeric material selectively, and it must
not act as a solvent for the matrix material. The third condition is that it
must penetrate the microscopic barriers located between the individual layers.
The researchers report that it is also possible to create layered nanopore
structures in block copolymers of PS and polybutadiene. Separating small
particles from liquids such as drinking water could be a future application. Use
of a surface layer of porous copolymers might, in this way, considerably
increase the effectiveness of membranes for ultrafiltration.
Author: Dr.-Ing. Harald Sambale
Oasys Water Raises $10 Million
ShareOasys Water, a Cambridge, MA-based startup, has wrapped up a $10 million
financing led by venture firms Advanced Technology Ventures, Draper Fisher
Jurvetson, and Flagship Ventures to develop its technology for converting salt
water into potable drinking water, the Boston Globe reported over the weekend.
Oasys tells the daily broadsheet that its forward osmosis technology, initially
developed at Yale University, uses 90 percent less energy and costs about a
third or half as much as current desalinization methods that rely on reverse
osmosis.
Abu Dhabi Environment Agency Completes 22 Solar PV Powered Desalination Plants
On January 18th, 2012 the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD, Abu Dhabi, U.A.E.)
announced the completion of 22 solar desalination plants, each of which can
produce roughly 25,000 liters per day of clean water from brackish sources.
The units are comprised of 300 square meter solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays which
generate 35 kW of electricity to power a pump that pulls groundwater from a
well. A reverse osmosis system uses pressure to separate clean water from
brackish water through a semi-permeable membrane. A subsurface irrigation system
then pumps the clean water to a pond, with the brine pumped into a separate
evaporation pond.
The announcement was made at the World Future Energy Summit 2012 in Abu Dhabi.
EAD states that it is still testing the solar desalination technique and working
on improving the efficiency of this method through a pilot project in Umm Al
Zamool, United Arab Emirates.
McIlvaine Company
Northfield, IL 60093-2743
Tel: 847-784-0012; Fax: 847-784-0061
E-mail: editor@mcilvainecompany.com
www.mcilvainecompany.com