Giving the Big Three Some Love!

 

From some of my posts it may seem like I have something against the Big Three MF/UF system suppliers (Evoqua, GE and Pall). That actually is not the case, and I have a lot of respect for how these companies brought Microfiltration/ Ultrafiltration from a novel drinking water treatment process in the early 1990s to the mainstream technology it is today. Before you read on, I will give a disclaimer that my chronology and facts may not all be correct and I am going from memory via my experience in Australia in the 90’s and what I have been able to verify on the internet.
   

Having been involved with bringing new water treatment technologies to market, I know how corporate pressure to get a return on development costs for shareholders and investors, as well as the need to keep up with competitors, or even the urgency to enter the market due to a regulatory window of opportunity can result in a technology being brought to market before it is fully developed and all kinks are worked out. That was likely the case in the early 90’s when Memtec Ltd. (Memcor in US) and soon after Zenon started trailblazing the application of MF/UF for drinking water filtration.

In the late 80’s before Memtec was bought by US Filter it was a small publically listed company in Australia with some innovative membrane technology but there was a lot of pressure to get wins to demonstrate the potential for the new technology and keep investors happy. Slow adoption in target food and wastewater markets led Memtec to focus on the higher potential drinking water market in the U.S. where tightening regulations was opening up new opportunities (ref). I believe Zenon’s early focus was also in the industrial wastewater market before drinking water opportunities beckoned.

 

Birth of North American MF/UF Market

Numerous sources indicate the first significant sized MF system installed in North America was by Memcor at the 3.6-MGD Saratoga WTP, CA in 1993 (Delphos, Wong). Up to that point there were three MF/UF systems less than 1 MGD installed in the US between 1987 and 1992 (AWWA Journal). After 1993 the growth in MF/UF installations started to grow exponentially (Figure 1), I assume helped by the Milwaukee cryptosporidium outbreak in 1993 and subsequent implementation of more stringent filtration requirements by the EPA’s Long Term 1 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule in 2002 (LT1ESWTR).



Figure 1: U.S. MF & UF Installations (AWWA)

Most of the initial MF systems installed in the 90’s were Memcor systems with Polypropylene (PP) hollow fiber pressurized modules that were not chlorine tolerant.  Sometime in the mid to late 90’s Zenon entered the market with their submerged vacuum driven PVDF membranes that were chlorine resistant. Perhaps due to fouling issues with the PP membrane and higher energy costs, Memcor quickly developed a PVDF submerged membrane to compete with Zenon. I was visiting Memcor’s Memfarm R&D site at Windsor outside Sydney in the late 90s when they were testing their new submerged PVDF MF system at the same time that my company was testing a MIEX ion exchange pilot as pretreatment to a Memcor MF pilot. Both technologies were first implemented on the full-scale in 1999 at South Australian Water Corp’s Mount Pleasant WTP, near Adelaide, SA.

By the end of the 90’s, Memcor/US Filter and Zenon were the ‘Big Two’ in the MF/UF Market. In the late 90’s, Pall, who at that time had little or no experience municipally, entered the market with Asahi’s Microza PVDF pressurized MF membrane module. By then, submerged/vacuum membranes had become the preferred configuration, particularly for large systems, but by the mid-2000s fierce competition between US Filter and Zenon had resulted in product modifications to increase cost competitiveness. This may have been responsible for emerging issues with membrane fiber and module integrity. Some of the issues may also have been because the technology was being pushed into more challenging applications. The Asahi membrane fiber did not have the same integrity issues, possibly due to the manufacturing method as claimed by Pall (called the TIPS process), although I think the fact the Asahi fiber was twice as thick and Memcor and Zenon’s also was a major factor (Based on current experience with Dow membranes manufactured the same way as Memcor and Zenon but having same thickness as Asahi). Pall capitalized on the integrity problems experienced by US Filter and Zenon and quickly grew to be the market leader by the late 2000s, with pressurized modules now back in vogue.

Figure 2: Vacuum Membrane Systems from Zenon (R) and US Filter (L)

But I didn’t really want to dwell on the history of how the Big Three got into the drinking water MF/UF market, and intended to focus on some of their  process developments that are taken for granted today and are being taken advantage of by new entrants to the market.

 I already indicated the move to chlorine resistant PVDF membranes, and chlorine resistant membranes in general, which went a long way to reducing fouling rates of membranes by allowing cleaning with sodium hypochlorite. This also allowed Maintenance Cleans (MCs) or Chemically Enhanced Backwashes (CEBs) using chlorine or chlorine/caustic where a MC/CEB is conducted every 1-7 days to reduce irreversible fouling and CIP frequencies. I think this was first developed by Pall and is now common practice at all MF/UF installations.

Another discovery was the use of Aluminum Chlorohydrate (ACH) as a coagulant for organics removal and to reduce organic fouling in preference to Alum and Ferric Salts. I may have had an indirect role in that discovery. In the mid-90s I was working for a company in Australia that manufactured ACH and we converted a direct filtration WTP near Geelong, Victoria (Barwon Water’s Wurdee Boluc WTP) from Alum to ACH.  After they found out that ACH extended filter run times and reduced sludge volumes (more compact floc at lower Al doses), Barwon Water’s Engineering Manager took a drum of ACH to the Meredith WTP, where they had just started up a 2.5 ML/d Memtec MF plant, I think one of the largest MF plants in Australia at the time. The feed water had a high TOC level and with direct Alum dosing in the feed, they had to do a CIP on a weekly basis due to rapid TMP buildup (give or take – I am going from memory). When they changed to ACH, the CIP frequency was reduced to monthly, reducing chemical use significantly and increasing plant uptime. Soon after, Memtec started buying ACH from our company and rebadging it for their membrane installations worldwide.

 There is no doubt that Memcor (now Evoqua) and Zenon (now GE) had to endure a lot of hard times in developing the North American MF/UF drinking water market, optimizing process operation while still learning the limitations of the technology. I am sure Pall also went through some learning pains as these companies developed the MF/UF technology into the robust and reliable process it is today (not to forget the engineers who also had to work out how to specify these systems…).  These companies probably lost a lot of money on projects in the early days. I know there have been other membrane companies also involved in developing the market over the past 20 years, but my focus here has been on the major players in terms of market share in North America.

In recent years, new entrants to the market have had a free ride being able to replicate aspects of Asahi’s membrane fiber and using process operating conditions learned from the blood sweat and tears of the Big Three over the past 20 years.

So while I may get frustrated at the slow rate of adoption of the new membrane modules on the market and acceptance of the OEMs who build systems using these, the Big Three have certainly earned their Brand Equity for all their hard work in bringing MF/UF filtration of drinking water to the mainstream and creating the municipal MF/UF market that exists today.

Delphos, P; “Membrane Filtration Basics 101”, VA AWWA Plant Operations Committee, Operations Conference, Virginia Beach, VA, May 2014

Wong, J; “California Leads the Way in Drinking Water Membrane Filtration”, WaterWorld Vol 28, Issue 7, 2012.



Should ACE Merge with WEFTEC?

Now the dust has settled on AWWA’s ACE15 and with WEFTEC on the horizon there have been the usual grumblings from some exhibitors and sales reps that they wished ACE would merge with WEFTEC. The argument is ACE is getting weaker, losing out to a growing WEFTEC so it would be a lot more time and cost effective for all of us if there was just one combined conference. So is that the feeling of the majority of the industry or just a disgruntled segment, or a segment of a segment?

I don’t have quantitative data but from someone who has exhibited at every ACE since 2000 and been to about five WEFTECs in the past 10 years, here is what seems to have happened to the two conferences from a show floor perspective:

Numbers at ACE in San Diego appeared to plummet in 2009 when the recession hit and it seemed to me people had to start choosing between ACE and WEFTEC due to reduced budgets. WEFTEC won because more products are sold into wastewater, there are more wastewater practitioners due to water treatment systems being more consolidated than wastewater – plus wastewater always needs treatment while more 50% of water systems just ad chlorine, so the sales reps sell a lot more equipment into wastewater treatment.

There also seems to be a lot more specialty conferences compared to 10 years ago with AMTA and its regional affiliates growing with increased membrane use, interest in reuse conferences due to water scarcity, biosolids conferences, etc… Many manufacturers and reps are just ‘conferenced out’. The timing of ACE probably does not help coming just after the busy spring conference season and during the first week of school vaction for many (although that is good for the university research community). WEFTEC on the other hand is just after the summer vacation period after virtually no trade shows for a few months. Maybe that is why the atmosphere at WEFTEC is like a school reunion (or Frat party) while at ACE It is more like a church social.

So would the industry be better off taking the advice of the sales reps and some manufacturers and merging WEFTEC and ACE into a mega waterpalooza? I don’t think so. Those that are complaining are just hanging out at the exhibit hall and I am sure not attending any presentations, without which there wouldn’t be a conference. The presentations and workshops are what bring over half the attendees to ACE providing a forum for presenters to talk about their research and teach delegates about the latest developments in the industry. If there was a merging of conferences, here is what I think the negatives would be for the drinking water industry:

-          There would be a lot less opportunities for water research presentations (and wastewater also) where it would not be possible to accommodate combining the size of the existing two programs. With less presentations from the universities available, research funds may be cut (where researchers need to show where their work is being presented and published) and the students will get less exposure to the real world practitioners and future employers.

-          Many of the more technical papers will be forced to go to the specialty conferences which are not as well attended and therefore will get less exposure to the general industry.

-          The manufacturers that specialize in water treatment products would be lost amongst the mega-wastewater supplier booths and difficult to find by the water treatment delegates walking the floor.

-          There certainly won’t be the same number of delegates and booths with both conferences combined, so which organization is going to take a cut in revenue?? Or will the complaining reps and manufacturers be happy with a combined show that has twice the registration fee and booth fee to be revenue neutral?

I could go on and on but the bottom line is for the good of the water industry, for the promotion of research and to provide a networking forum for those who specialize in the drinking water industry, ACE should remain separate from WEFTEC. If less reps go to ACE and some more manufacturers decide to just go to WEFTEC, good riddance as they won’t be missed by those serious about the betterment of the industry.

Membrane Module Warranties for Non-Proprietary MF/UF Systems - How They Work

I have often had questions from engineers and owners about how the MF/UF membrane module warranty is provided when the manufacturer of these membranes is different from the manufacturer of the membrane system. This confusion is understandable since traditionally the suppliers of low-pressure membrane systems (Pall, Siemens/Evoqua, GE) have also supplied their own proprietary membranes (Pall does not manufacture its MF membranes, but has exclusive access to Asahi’s Microza membranes in North America and some other regions). Therefore in the past, the membrane system warranty and membrane module warranty have originated from the same entity.

Wigen Manufactured UF Skid with Toray Modules

With the emergence in recent years of non-proprietary MF/UF systems built by companies such as Wigen Water Technologies and H2O Innovation that use ultrafiltration modules provided by companies such as Toray, Dow and Hydranautics, the question is often raised as to who provides the membrane module warranty and who does the customer call if there is a warranty issue?

The process of providing the extended membrane module warranty is not unlike that which has been in place for RO membrane elements for many years, although of course there are a lot of different and more complex requirements for a hollow fiber MF/UF membrane warranty. Typically, when an OEM is reviewing specifications for a MF/UF system, the OEM will share with the membrane module manufacturer (MMM) the proposed system design including design flux and cleaning regimes and water quality data along with the warranty requirements. In many cases the MMM will also provide a projection for the proposed plant design. Based on this information, the MMM will provide to the OEM a warranty that meets the requirements of the specifications or in some cases may provide some exceptions. This warranty is based on an agreed system design between the MMM and OEM. In my experience, the MMM will not provide the OEM with an extended warranty without reviewing the relevant sections of the specifications and the OEM’s proposed design. This warranty is then passed through the OEM to the system owner. Any warranty claims for both the membrane equipment and membrane modules are made direct to the OEM, as is also the case for the proprietary membrane system suppliers.

Therefore, as far as the system owner is concerned, the membrane module warranty provided for non-proprietary MF/UF systems is no different from what has been provided in the past for proprietary systems, with all claims made to the MF/UF system manufacturer (OEM).

2015 AMTA/AWWA Annual Membrane Conference Highlights

Scinor Makes Splash with Direct Retrofit UF Modules!

 

Without a doubt from my perspective, the launch of Scinor’s direct retrofit UF modules was the breaking news of the 2015 AMTA/AWWA Annual Membrane Conference a few weeks ago in Orlando FL. The emergence of direct retrofit UF modules for Pall, GE and Evoqua/Memcor systems could just be the catalyst to push the MF/UF market to commoditization.

Scinor Water Limited, based in Beijing, China, is making modules of exactly the same configuration as Pall, GE, Memcor and Dow modules using a TIPS ultrafiltration fiber which they claim is equivalent to the TIPS fiber used in Pall’s modules (made by Asahi) and stronger than the NIPS fibers used in the Memcor, GE and Dow modules. Scinor’s US business is headed up by some very experienced ex-Pall employees so they should know what they are talking about. According to their literature, Scinor currently has about 100 installations using their membranes, nearly all in China with a total installed capacity of 210 MGD. I don’t believe they have published what the split of these installations are between GE, Pall, Dow, etc. retrofits.

Scinor certainly made a grand entrance to the US membrane market at the 2015 AWWA/AMTA Annual Membrane Conference with a booth, major sponsorship and comprehensive technical and sales literature. Their membranes have also been challenge tested to receive EPA LT2 log removal credits by the California DPH. My understanding is that the initial UF market entry strategy is to pursue replacement opportunities for older Memcor, Pall and GE installations. This is a pretty sound strategy where they can potentially get their modules in use quickly to get reference installations and hopefully demonstrate reliable performance while in parallel establishing relationships with OEMs to use their modules in new installations.

At the conference I asked the opinion of one of the membrane experts from a major consulting firm and he likened Scinor to the street salesman with imitation watches under his jacket. The image of a cheap imitation membrane company from China will be something Scinor has to manage to be seriously considered. The US team certainly has some very savvy Pall guys on their team (marketing and engineering) which should at least provide initial credibility and open some doors.

Whille replacements at existing systems will provide some quick cash flow, the key to long term success of Scinor will be acceptance by independent OEMs who use Dow and Toray modules such as H2O Innovation and Wigen Water Technologies. I can't see Pall, GE and Evoqua buying their modules for new systems. Wigen and H2O are unlikely to want to use Pall and GE knockoffs as these have much less membrane surface area than the Dow and Toray modules and would not be efficiently used on their Open Platform/Universal UF racks with these larger modules.

 

Wigen's Spectrum Series Universal UF Rack on Display at the AMTA/AWWA Conference

 

For large scale installations, we will want to see the Scinor modules in use at retrofits for 2 to 3 years with no membrane integrity issues before we see these modules used in new systems, even if they are a lot lower cost. It will then really be up to the engineers and water utilities to first approve these membranes and write them into specifications before they are seriously considered for an initial Open Platform UF rack inventory.

 

Urgent Bids and Budgets; The Engineers that Stole Christmas!

What is up with all these bids and urgent budget price requests before Christmas??

Some engineers and owners may not realize that we have kids in Christmas choir concerts and plays and end of year parties also…. I am in trouble with the wife because I have a sick kid on the last day of school so she wants me to go to another kid’s break up party because she can’t, but I have a bid today, one Monday and one Tuesday next week (12/23) that I need to get pricing and proposals together for…. Why does someone want bids on 12/23? Are the engineers going to go through them between Christmas Eve and New Year ’s Day? I bloody hope they are after I have busted my butt to get these together and not had a chance to enjoy all the buildup to the holidays...

And to the engineers who say “well if you can’t get the budget price by 12/24, can you get it to us by 12/31…. Yeah great, there goes the few day’s off I was planning to have with the family after the hectic bidding up to Christmas Eve. And this does not take into account a few projects I decided not to bid because of such a high workload this time of year.

It certainly is a good sign for the economy and the industry all of this bidding happening at once and I prefer too many bids than none. I understand there may be some budgetary reasons for needing these projects bid before the end of the year. If the project must be bid by year’s end and you want to get quality bids, my recommendation is you bid it late November or early December. Otherwise you may end up getting a conservative estimate because OEMs don’t have time to properly cost the project (and we are at the same time hassling our suppliers for quotes who would have the same gripe as us being flooded at the end of the year) and maybe getting high bids will defeat the purpose of trying to push the project through by the end of the year!

Manufacturers are from Mars, Engineers are from Venus!

Why bidding creates conflict and how it could be improved.

 

When I was asked to present the OEM’s perspective on Design, Procurement and Fabrication at the AMTA-SWMOA Membrane Technology Transfer Workshop this past July, I jumped at the opportunity as I had already started drafting this blog post related to the inevitable conflict that arises between engineers, OEMs, contractors and owners during the bidding process.

 The Design-Bid-Build process nearly always ends up being a win-lose relationship between OEM, contractor, engineer and owner. The biggest hurdle in turning around this win-lose culture is the fact the OEMs (and contractors) are from Mars and Engineers are from Venus, i.e. while we speak the same language, we don’t understand each other….

Honestly, I think all parties have good intentions but because they don’t understand each other there is a ‘protect your butt’ attitude throughout the procurement process from spec writing to post-bid submittals. And the tone is set by the way the specifications are written. Typically specifications are written so that the owner and engineer are protected from being ‘short changed’ by the contractor on the quality and functionality of the treatment process they have designed and wish to procure, and rightly so since they have designed the system and are looking to pay someone to build it.

Beware the Dreaded ‘Catch-all’ Statements

As a manufacturer, what is so frustrating are the ‘catch-all’ statements often embedded in very detailed specifications. For example, before tightly specifying every nut and bolt to be used, the specification prefaces the equipment design details by saying “the Contractor shall supply a complete and operable system including the following components….”. And then following the detailed specs it will say “The specified information does not relieve the Contactor of the responsibility to provide a fully operable system”. Can someone please give me a clear definition of a ‘complete and operable system’ because this statement is certainly open to interpretation.

I used this example in my AMTA/SCMA presentation; when my wife says she does not like the color of the living room, I am from Mars and think she wants me to paint it a different color. But I don’t understand that what she is really saying is the house is too small, she hates the new neighbors and she wants to move… How could I have not realized that by her initial statement?? Engineers and contractors/manufacturers have the same form of communication disconnect. When they write in a specification that it is the contractor’s responsibility to provide a ‘complete and operable system’ in addition to complying with a detailed equipment description and P&IDs, the contactor/manufacturer assumes if they provide what is in the P&IDs and is described in the detailed specs they will have provided what the engineer/owner requires. Wrong!

Cynically, you could say this is an insurance statement inserted by the engineer in case something was forgotten and the specifications were not watertight enough so that the contractor/manufacturer may cut some corners in quality.  Perhaps contractors/manufacturers are therefore partly responsible for these statements because of past practices. But these statements certainly set up the course of the project as a win-lose relationship.

I worked on a project where ‘complete and operable’ meant that since the CIP tank that was specified was 7ft tall, as the supplier of this tank we were supposed to interpret that we should also supply a platform for access…. As far as the contractor was concerned, he wasn’t supplying the membrane system, so that was our problem... We didn’t read all the details of the building specs, so didn’t know a platform hadn’t been accounted for. Was  there ever an intention that one of us was going to provide a platform or did the owner/engineer realize this was needed during the submittal phase and called in the catch-all insurance statement to cover their butt? In this case it wasn’t a big cost item and we sorted it out, but it is a good example of where the contractor/manufacturer can be trapped by vague specs.

Bid Counseling…

So how can we avoid this win-lose situation?  Let me be a project counselor for a minute and try to

get the parties to understand where each is coming from. Firstly Mr. Engineer; you have to realize when you set up a competitive bidding environment, a catch-all statement is not worth the paper the spec is written on! As a bidder, I cannot afford to include anything that is not specifically described in the specifications and hope to be selected. I am certainly not going to see a statement saying ‘complete and operable’ and think “Oh yeah, I should also include a platform in my pricing” and assume all my competitors will do the same. I am going to be out of business in a hurry in that case. In a competitive bid situation you have to assume the bidders will provide only what they have to because they will assume that is what their competitors will be doing.

From an engineer’s perspective, if there are some different options in products that can be used to meet a treatment objective making it difficult to write a fully prescriptive spec, then perhaps there should be a pre-procurement process where the engineer can evaluate proposals from process equipment suppliers and make sure there is an apples to apples comparison in scopes of supply. Then select the process equipment prior to going to contractor bid. That is typically how the microfiltration/ultrafiltration system bidding process works where historically the equipment design has varied between manufacturers (see Municipal Ultrafiltration Heads Towards Commoditization). The only thing a contractor can do if a bid spec is vague is provide the lowest cost option that appears to meet the specs or formally ask a question to have this clarified prior to the bid close. Whether the response will be provided in a timely manner or the question adequately answered is another issue, another opportunity for Venus and Mars misinterpretations and another topic I could dedicate a whole post to…

I don’t have a perfect answer on how to solve all the conflicts that arise from the design-bid-build procurement process. Don’t get me wrong and think I am putting the blame for the conflict on any particular party, as I think historically all parties have had some role in creating this win-lose, protect your butt environment. I have also participated in many projects where the relationship between engineer, contractor and equipment manufacturer has been great. For some of these projects we were given the opportunity to review a draft of the full set of specifications prior to the bid (and not just a few days before release), which was a big help in getting everyone on the same page on bid day.

Conflict does not have to be inevitable for design-bid-build projects but it will take a little more trust between the parties and a lot more communication throughout the project to avoid it. Don’t be afraid to involve manufacturers and contractors in the spec review process, then perhaps the catch-all statements would not be needed, plus they may actually have some good ideas that can save everyone some money – Heck, wouldn’t that be a win-win?!?

Ultrafiltration Module Market Still Hard to Grasp for Some

Encouraging Signs that Engineers/Owners are Gradually Catching On

Two recent RFPs for pilot studies for future large (30-50 MGD) MF/UF installations were encouraging in that they were open to piloting modules from some of the relatively newer market entrants, but also highlighted that there is still some work needed to educate many engineers and system owners on how an Ultrafiltration system is built using these modules. It really isn’t that complicated if you are familiar with the RO/NF market where the manufacturers of the membranes are suppliers to the OEMs/System Integrators who build the functioning systems and who bid the projects.

Dow UF Modules on a System Built by Wigen Water Technologies

One of these RFPs was for a large drinking water facility and it was sent out to the likes of Dow and Toray asking for pilot plant information and reference sites. Of course both of these companies then contacted my company (and likely other OEMs who have used their membranes) to see if they could use our pilot plant and provide reference information for the systems we have built using their membrane modules. We are now working directly with the City to conduct a pilot study with one of these modules.

The other RFQ is for a future large wastewater filtration system and the City has obviously made an effort to invite all of the MF/UF module suppliers to submit a proposal as well as the 'Big Three' membrane system OEMs. This RFQ is still not due for a few weeks and we have already been contacted by three of the module manufacturers asking if we will be submitting a proposal and if so, can we use their module. Obviously this City also does not understand that these module suppliers do not build systems and that they should be targeting the integrators who use these modules. What is really amusing about this RFQ is the scoring process that proposals will be evaluated by. Seventy percent (70%) of the evaluation weighting is based on the financial strength of the company and the strength of the reference list, with higher scoring for larger systems operating for longer periods. Why then waste time and effort in asking for proposals from anyone other than Pall, Evoqua and GE? Are these guys so ignorant that they don’t realize that systems using Dow or Toray modules have only been operating in the US for 3-4 years and are all less than 10 MGD and to my knowledge there are no significant sized systems using Hydranautics or Econity UF modules in the US? They would have to look to Asia or Europe to find any systems of significant size using these modules. I would want to get some sort of indication that the City would be waiving the selection criteria for one of the three pilots to consider something different before I waste any time in submitting a proposal here… At least the City has acknowledged that there are alternative MF/UF modules to those offered by the Big Three but if it is serious about looking at one of the alternatives, the City needs to get better educated on which OEMs/integrators have experience using these modules and develop a more realistic selection criteria that will give these OEMs a chance of being selected.

Despite the confusion over the membrane module marketplace, I do see a silver lining with increasing interest and acceptance of the non-proprietary membrane modules. It is still going to take a while for the majority of engineers and owners to ‘get’ how this new market works and the module manufacturers and integrators who use them need to work harder in educating these designers and end users.