March was a
busy month for conferences so I am combining my summary of the 2018 MTC in West Palm Beach and CA
Annual WateReuse Conference in Monterey. There were may of the same West Coast engineers at
both shows, which is an indication of the high use of membranes in wastewater
recycling projects.
AMTA/AWWA Membrane Technology Conference
Attendance
was similar to the past few years at just over 1000 delegates. It felt a little
down to me based on exhibit hall traffic, but the quality of delegates was very
good as usual, with a lot of interesting membrane projects in the works. The
technical program was excellent, and I found myself torn between sessions many
times when papers I wanted to see were being presented simultaneously.
There were quite a
few sessions on potable reuse including studies directed at proving pathogen
removal credits for MBRs and Reverse Osmosis for indirect and direct potable
reuse of wastewater and the results look pretty conclusive with regulations to follow in the near future.
In terms on
new technology, it looks like Metawater has some real competition now on the ceramic
membrane front, with Nanostone recently completing some drinking water plant retrofits
in the Dakotas. I think this a pretty good strategy for Nanostone where retrofitting
will allow them to get some quick references for their ceramic membrane. The
current target for the retrofits is cold water filtration applications where the
capacity of systems with polymeric membranes is reduced in winter while the flux
reduction for ceramic membranes is significantly less.
There were
also a number of presentations on the use of Desalitech’s Closed Circuit
Desalination (CCD) process for concentrating brine and improving recovery at
wastewater reuse and brackish water applications. It looks like there will be
some decent sized CCD systems in municipal applications on the West Cost in the
near future.
WateReuse California Annual Conference
This was my
first time at this show and I was very impressed with the number of delegates, around
600, which is about half of what is at the national WateReuse Symposium. A
large percentage of those attending were water utilities, indicative of all the
reuse activity in California. Since this was in Monterey, the Monterey One
Water reuse demonstration plant and full-scale reuse system under construction
were featured, including a tasting of beer made from the demonstration plant, a
frequent and popular event at the WateReuse shows. I must say that Monterey One
Water has done an excellent job with their demonstration plant that is set up
for tours for all sectors of the community. I believe Pure Water San Diego probably
had the first long term demonstration plant followed by Monterey and now many
more water utilities are following suit to gain public acceptance of direct and
indirect potable reuse.
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| Monterey One Water Demonstration Plant |
I did hear
in one presentation that the State of California is about to award pathogen log
removal credits for MBRs and in anticipation of this, a number of future reuse
projects are already removing UF from the Full Advanced Treatment (FAT) train
and feeding RO directly from a MBR. Some of these full-scale projects are
currently or about to bid. If you ask me, I am OK with MBRs as a barrier for
indirect reuse, but I am not ready for MBRs without a subsequent UF filtration step
as a pathogen barrier for direct potable reuse.
The
organizers of this conference did a great job in planning every detail,
including presentations and entertainment at lunches and breakfast (the
WateReuse Family Feud was hilarious!) and I can see why the attendance at this
show was so good.