Monday, April 29, 2019

2019 AMTA/AWWA Membrane Technology Conference Wrap



The AWWA/AMTA Membrane Technology Conference was held in New Orleans, February 25-28 and attendance was a little down this year. I put the lower attendance down to two main factors - scheduling the week before Mardi-Gras made accommodation and travel expensive (although it was fun seeing some of the festivities) and; because the region isn’t a hub for membrane installations, at least municipally which is where most attendees come from, there were very few local attendees. Further to the last point, there were no technical tours this year because suitable nearby membrane installations could not be found and that may have made the conference less attractive to some potential attendees.

Despite a few hundred less attendees, the technical program was still strong and most of the key engineers working in the municipal membrane field were in attendance. In terms of new developments, there were two ceramic membrane sessions, one of which I attended, but I didn’t see a lot of new information presented as I had already seen versions of these projects presented in the past year. Nanostone has completed a few more retrofits of their membrane at polymeric installations but overall, I don’t see large scale adoption of ceramic membranes at new facilities in the near future where costs are still prohibitive – there is a lot of interest in ceramic membranes though. In the exhibit hall there were a few more companies promoting ceramic membranes and I would like to see some case study posters or presentations from these firms in the future.

Niche Technologies Poorly Represented
Most of the sessions were more around interesting applications of existing membrane technology or optimization of performance and waste minimization, which is all very important, but I didn't see much on the full-scale application of new technologies (although there were some good research presentations on new membrane developments). Walking around the exhibition, there are some interesting technologies available such as Berghof’s tubular UF membranes which are used in challenging filtration applications and it would be nice to have a session to showcase these niche technologies. Perhaps these companies don’t submit abstracts because they are intimidated by the selection process, so maybe there should be a dedicated session for the more niche membrane products.

One beef I had about the exhibition was how far it was located from the presentations which was a disincentive for those attending the presentations to make it back down to the exhibit hall during breaks or for those in the hall to go to the presentations. For this reason, I didn’t get to see as many presentations as I normally do as I had to be at a booth. The hall was slower than I have seen it in the past 8 years and many exhibitors were not happy. The New Orleans Convention Center is fine for a huge event like WEFTEC but was too large and spread out for a smaller specialty conference like MTC. I think the logistical issues were realized by the organizers and will be taken into account at future shows.

So, it was still a worthwhile conference to attend and it is good to try new locations, and some will be better than others. With MTC in Phoenix next year in a strong membrane using region, I am sure attendance numbers will be back up.

No comments:

Post a Comment