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.