2017 AWWA/AMTA Membrane Technology Conference Wrap

No major highlights but still worth attending

It was mentioned to me at the Membrane Technology Conference in Long Beach last month that I should write shorter posts, but do them more frequently, so I am going to give that a try. One thing that stood out to me at this year’s MTC is that nothing really stood out… The attendance was good, the number of exhibitors was typical and the technical program was very interesting but nothing jumped out at me as an exciting new development or trend.

There were certainly a lot of presentations on the use of membranes in wastewater reuse applications, particularly in California where the drought has driven the need for alternative water sources and in the past few years this has probably been the biggest growth areas for membranes. But with a lot of recent rain in California, will the reuse projects start to dry up? Along the same lines, there was interesting discussion on getting pathogen log removal credits for MBRs which could simplify the treatment trains required for direct potable reuse – see my post from the 2016 WateReuse Symposium for more details on this topic.

I didn’t get much time to walk the exhibit hall floor but I didn’t see any new players in the market and nothing caught my eye as being ground breaking. A few companies who have exhibited in previous years just chose to just walk the floor this year. Lanxess looks to be making a bigger push into the membrane market with the largest booth this year and IDE had a lot of exposure as the major sponsor as they look to become a major player in the US reuse and desalination market.

Not that I thought the show was not worth attending. Quite the opposite. With a lot of big projects bidding or about to bid and the owners and engineers for these projects attending and some presenting, there was a lot of valuable information to be gleaned and business to be done.  I think the venue this year wasn’t as conducive to after show networking as other years with delegates split between a number of hotels. But if you work in the membrane field it was still a show you could not afford to miss.