PFAS, PFOS, PFOA, PVDF?

Debunking Misleading Connections Between PFAS and PVDF Membranes

There is confusion in parts of the U.S. water industry, possibly fueled by non-PVDF membrane suppliers, around the connection of PVDF membranes and new regulations for PFAS compounds in drinking water. PVDF (Polyvinylidene fluoride) is the most widely used material in the manufacture of MF and UF membranes.

The confusion stems from proposed regulations in Europe that would broadly define PFAS as any substance that contains at least one fully fluorinated methyl (CF3) or methylene (CF2) carbon atom (without any H/Cl/Br/I attached to it). This definition would cover a wide variety of chemical structures, including PVDF. In contrast, the current USEPA definitions of PFAS exclude PVDF including the most recent update of the structural definition of PFAS.

The American Membrane Technology Association (AMTA) has stated that PVDF is considered to be part of a class of high molecular weight fluoropolymers that are distinct from non-polymeric PFAS and have distinctly different physiochemical, toxicological and environmental characteristics. AMTA also states that suppliers of PVDF used for water treatment membranes have certified that there is no use of PFAS as processing aids. See the full AMTA Fact Sheet here.

So, with all of this regulatory discussion there is an ‘opportunity’ to confuse those that are not conversant in polymer chemistry and the correct definitions. I have heard concerns from some end users and engineers that PVDF membranes may release PFAS compounds and may therefore be banned in the future. Coincidentally, these rumors are strongest where ceramic membranes are being considered… Ironically, when offered PES membranes as a non-PVDF polymeric membrane alternative, one engineer said they did not want to consider ‘unproven’ membranes, implying that ceramic membranes were considered more proven... I’d say there are orders of magnitude more PES membrane capacity installed than ceramic membranes, also with a lot longer operating history.

If an engineer and owner want to install ceramic membranes, that is their decision to make. I just want to make sure PVDF membranes are not misrepresented and decisions and made based on facts. Firstly, the European regulations are not being proposed due to any concern that PVDF membranes are releasing PFAS into drinking water. They are just a broad regulation to ban production of products using PFAS materials (like Teflon). Secondly, there is no evidence that PFAS compounds are released into drinking water from PVDF membranes after use for over 20 years. As part of the development of regulations for PFAS in drinking water, the USEPA has required extensive testing of drinking water supplies and no connection with systems using PVDF membranes has been made. Thirdly, the USEPA has indicated it has no intention of banning PVDF or classifying it is a PFAS compound, irrespective of what happens in Europe.

I know some water systems will still lean towards using ceramic membranes due to concerns about future regulations against PVDF even though this is highly unlikely. If they are prepared to pay a high premium for membranes as insurance against this low probability, sobeit. Maybe less expensive insurance would be to install an open platform/universal polymeric membrane system now, that can be converted to ceramic if needed in the future.

The comments and opinions in this post are my own and not those of my employer.

PFAS Discharges into Sand Creek from Suncor’s Denver Refinery Must Stop

Suncor Refinery alongside Sand Creek - Photo by Hyoung Chang, Denver Post

I have been stewing over whether to do a post on an article I saw in the Denver Post on July 27, 2023, regarding discharges of PFAS from Suncor’s refinery in the Denver area into Sand Creek which eventually makes its way to the South Platte.  For years I have been hearing local news stories of concerns from nearby communities about air emissions from the refinery and allegations of exceeding EPA and Colorado Department of Health and Environment (CDPHE) permit levels. I have wondered if Suncor has been given some slack due to its position as a major fuel supplier in the region. Whenever the refinery is offline due to maintenance, etc., fuel prices spike which impacts the wider community’s hip pocket (does anyone keep their wallet in their hip pocket anymore?). Is that allowing Suncor some leverage over CDPHE’s permitting process? According to the Denver Post article, Suncor had been operating on an air quality permit from 2006 that is supposed to be updated every 5 years. The permits for water and stormwater discharges were last updated in 2012.  Of course, having a permit does not mean Suncor adheres to it and there have been reported incidences of benzene spills into Sand Creek over the years as well as air permit exceedances.

South Platte’s PFAS Problem

Being in the water industry and seeing the great expense many water utilities and communities are facing to meet upcoming PFAS regulations, when I read about how such high levels are being discharged from Suncor into a drinking water source used by so many Coloradans it really hit a raw nerve for me. Pretty much any water treatment system taking water from the South Platte in the Denver Metro Area and East, including nearby wells, will have to implement some sort of treatment for PFAS removal. The cost for treatment is in the millions to tens of millions of dollars each, depending on system size. While the drinking water PFAS regulations are still being finalized, many water systems are already making plans to install treatment, since it can take years to get the funds and construct the required treatment equipment (typical solutions are GAC, Ion Exchange or Reverse Osmosis).

Suncor’s source of PFAS is likely firefighting foams used onsite, although I’m not familiar with refining to know if any raw materials contain PFAS also. This contaminates groundwater under the refinery and according to the Denver Post, Suncor treats this groundwater before releasing to Sand Creek, although obviously it not treated for PFAS removal yet. Admittedly, PFAS has only been identified as a concern in drinking water relatively recently (since 2016) and drinking water regulations are still being finalized. But Suncor was issued a draft permit by CDPHE in 2020 to release no more than 70 parts per trillion into Sand Creek. Note in June 2023 Suncor reported to the CDPHE a discharge level of 2,675 ppt…this is after Suncor apparently installed in interim treatment system to reduce PFAS to 70 ppt in early 2022.

The Denver Post article reported that Suncor estimated it would take 3 years and millions of dollars to build a permanent system to remove PFAS from wastewater before discharge into Sand Creek. Suncor also said PFAS removal is extremely difficult and treatment technologies are still in development. These statements really raise my hackles. First of all, established treatment technologies for PFAS are available now – Reverse Osmosis, Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) and Ion Exchange are well proven and already in use for PFAS removal by water utilities. Secondly, if the stormwater is already being collected for treatment, a lot of the hard work is already done and it would not be difficult to add GAC or ion exchange to the treatment train. Much larger treatment systems have already been installed on contaminated Californian ground water supplies in a quick response to the detection of PFAS and the interim regulations. So don’t try to say the technologies are not yet developed! Locally, there are also treatment systems installed at water utilities south of Colorado Springs where they detected PFAS in the ground water supply originating from a local military base.

While Suncor continues to discharge PFAS into Sand Creek, communities downstream are paying the price with their health and their money where the local water treatment plants must pay for treatment.

The article in the Post was written in late July, so Suncor may very well have accelerated installing treatment for PFAS removal since then, since the media is quick to report a violation but often slow to report on a resolution. If so, then I retract some of my vitriol for Suncor not taking action.

The comments and opinions in this post are my own and not those of my employer.

“So your saying there’s a chance” - Dumb Bid Evaluation Processes

 I saw a bid evaluation process recently for membrane equipment that I hadn’t seen in about 10 years. I thought this type of evaluation had seen its last days with the demise of the bids that only allowed the ‘big-three’ proprietary system suppliers (Pall, Memcor, Zenon). I guess there are some engineers/owners still living in the past who don’t realize that bidding processes of the old days are not relevant for evaluating between todays’ membrane system suppliers (MSSs).

This particular bid process required bidders to provide in one envelope (#1) a technical proposal, including qualification and experience criteria, and in the other envelope (#2) the pricing and other commercial information. The owner and/or owner’s engineer would review the technical proposal and select the best qualified submission and only open the pricing proposal for that bidder. If the price met budget they would start negotiations to award to that bidder without looking at pricing for any other bidders. Out of the four MSSs invited to bid, one of these was one of the big-three and would clearly have the most references and be chosen as having the best score out of the technical proposals. So why would the other three bother bidding? Maybe some would hope the favorite in the race did not turn up for some reason?

In the old days, the big-three would bid nearly everything to try get market share in a fast growing and evolving market. Well hello, the MF/UF market is now quite mature, MSSs are often bidding with the same membranes supplied by independent vendors and decisions on whether to bid or not are based on whether the project can be profitable rather than buying market share. So, if you don’t have an open and fair bidding process, there may be only one bidder, which does not look good for the writer of the specifications.

This bidding situation had the look of the engineer/owner really wanting to select one manufacturer while keeping that manufacturer’s price honest. As long as the price is within budget, that manufacturer’s price could be higher than all others and the owner would never know. These days for MF/UF system procurement it is common to see a prequalification stage where a short list is made of manufacturers based on experience, company financial stability, references, local service, etc and then these bidders have a competitive bid based on price. That way the owner and engineer are happy with the quality of the bidders and the owner gets the best price from these bidders.

Another bidding process that is a combination of the above has a scoring matrix where price (or NPV) is say 40-60 points out of 100, with the rest of the points spread across reference installations, local service capabilities and other factors. This evaluated bid process can still allow the engineer/owner to pick the MSS they prefer using the subjective scoring factors, as long as the pricing of the preferred vendor is not too high. But at least all bidders will get their prices considered and therefore more MSS’s will likely bid, even those scoring lower on the non-price factors. As Lloyd said in Dumb and Dumber “So your saying there’s a chance”. I still think this bid process is not ideal, but if it is an open bid with no favorite, I’ll take this this type of evaluated bid over the two-envelope lucky draw...

Of course, if I am in the shoes of the preferred manufacturer with the best experience, I’ll take the ol’ two envelope bid process but sooner or later when this process yields only one bidder, somebody will end up looking dumb…

The comments and opinions in this post are my own and not those of my employer.

Good Projects Spoiled by Bad Contractor Selection

 

Something that really perplexes me is how engineers and owners can put so much effort into the design of a plant, ensuring equipment vendors and components are well qualified and tightly specified, then the project is put out to bid and awarded to the contractor with the lowest price. Then it is a crapshoot if the contractor has the experience or capability to complete the project….

The contractor is the most important part of the project. They are responsible for taking the process equipment specified and all the surrounding infrastructure and turning it into a functioning water treatment plant. So why are there so many instances where unqualified, low-bid contractors win these projects?

When an incompetent contractor runs into trouble with schedule or budget when he/she missed something in the specifications, he is going to do what he can to deflect the blame to try keep the project profitable and avoid LDs. That often ends up in conflict with process equipment vendors to improve schedule to make up for poor project management, and drawn-out payments to vendors because the contractor can’t get approval for achieving project milestones. So many times I have heard the excuse from contractors that they can’t pay for start-up because they haven’t been paid for the practical completion milestone. That is compete BS when the equipment has been delivered and started up months ago and the contractor can’t get his s - it together to finish the landscaping or install the toilets… Just as frustrating is when start-up is delayed for months because the contractor is behind with installation, meanwhile the component vendors for the process equipment must be paid, so we go back to the old story of the process equipment vendor also acting as a bank for the project… (see previous post). All of this leads to conflict between the owner, engineer, contractor and OEMs and nobody feels good about the project.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not out to bash all contractors. I have worked with a lot of very competent water treatment system contractors. And process equipment vendors are not always without blame for delays and missing items in the specifications. I have also seen specs where it wasn’t clear who was supposed to provide some items, so nobody had them, which is on the engineer who wrote the specs. My gripe is really with the process of not prequalifying contractors and ending up with a rudderless ship of a project. Similarly, process equipment vendors should be pre-qualified and most of the time they are, but when they are not it opens up the possibility of any garage integrator throwing in a price. Which takes me back to my original point – why spend so much time designing and specifying a plant and then leaving the execution in the hands of a random low bidding contractor?

Don't Blame the Pandemic

Admittedly, these days in some cases it has been hard to find contractors to bid projects. So, standards may be lowered to get competitive bids. Before a job goes out to bid, there has to be an awareness of what else is bidding locally that will cause contractors to pick and choose what to bid. I have seen bids delayed so as not to overlap with a larger project bidding in the region, which is smart. I have also seen cases where a bid is due just before a board meeting to approve the winning bidder, so there is no room to delay the bid for scope clarifications or to allow contactors more time to prepare, so bidders drop out. This happens so many times. An engineer spends a year or more pulling the spec together then allows 4-5 weeks for contractors to get a bid together and there is no flex in the bidding schedule to give contractors a few more weeks. Not smart!

 While recent years have made this situation worse with supply chain delays and a shortage of contractors to bid projects, unqualified contractors winning water treatment projects has been going on for years and is not a symptom of the pandemic. Engineers and owners need to put more thought into  the bidding process to ensure they get a competent contractor which will ensure a much more successful and harmonious project for all involved!

IDA 2022 World Congress a Global Meeting of Desal Minds

After changes of venue and multiple delays due to the Covid pandemic, the 2022 International Desalination Association (IDA) World Congress was finally held in Sydney Australia, October 9-13. It is the first time I have been to this conference, or any truly international water conference for that matter, and it was exciting and inspirational to see the global networking and established relationships across continents and the open sharing of technical knowledge and experiences. Everyone was drawn together by a common interest in water treatment, mostly by desalination, and protecting the earth’s most natural resource, no matter the country, language or culture. I may sound a bit cliché, but I was truly moved by the spirit and sense of common cause of the conference.

What’s New is the World of Desal? Brine Mining!

The main focus of the technical program was seawater desalination but there were some interesting topics and new developments being discussed in the desal world. Most notable to me was how to handle waste concentrate and a lot of interest in brine mining. Highly concentrated brine is being seen as a potential resource for rare earth metals, including lithium. First there needs to be processes to concentrate brine higher than conventional seawater membranes and companies such as Gradient and Toyobo presented on osmotically assisted RO (OARO) processes that can concentrate brine from a seawater process up to 130,000 mg/L TDS without needing significantly higher pressures. Osmotic assistance is provided by applying a saline stream on the permeate side, which lowers the osmotic pressure difference across the membrane, allowing permeate production at feed pressures less than the osmotic pressure of the feed. There is also interest in ultra-high pressure membranes and housings for achieving higher seawater recoveries and therefore higher brine concentrations, but I think if the counterflow processes are feasible, they are a safer and probably lower energy option.

 Once you have the highly concentrated brine, you have to extract the valuable constituents and from one presentation I saw from Dr. Monsalvo from Aqualia, that involves a lot of treatment steps… So it looks to me the recovered metals would need to be very valuable to offset the high cost of extraction. With world shortages in these elements, I’m sure with continued research the extraction costs will go down making these processes more feasible. There is no shortage of research in this area! There were also many presentations looking at minimizing the environmental impact of brines, indicating the industry realizes this needs to be addressed to ensure desalination is a viable water supply solution into the future.

Wastewater reuse also had a prominent share of the program, recognizing the role of desalination in reuse applications, with several dedicated sessions and two panel discussions, one of which I was very pleased to participate on.

The IDA Water Reuse Panel I was excited to be part of

I was also very impressed with how the technical sessions and panels were all conducted in the exhibit hall in walled-off areas, so it was easy to jump from session to session or to a panel discussion without leaving the hall. Meals were also served in the same area keeping attendees together all day. This is a great model for other conferences if it is logistically possible.

I can’t say I have anything negative to say about the show. Very professional production, great technical content, great networking, awesome venue! As long as you were able to get to Sydney… 

The comments and opinions in this post are my own and not those of my employer.

Manganese Removal Ain’t Manganese Removal!

 

I was looking at specifications for a project earlier this year that had very tight targets for iron and manganese (combined target of >0.06 mg/L) but there was no pilot data to back up that these targets were achievable. Bidders were required to guarantee these limits would be met by the specified pressure filter system with Greensand Plus media. When there was pushback in guaranteeing the performance of the system (that the engineer had designed) without any prior testing to show this was achievable, the response from the engineer was that there were other Greensand Plus filters in the State that were achieving these levels so there should be no issues making the performance guarantee…

This was essentially saying that the performance of a treatment process on one water source should be expected on a totally different source water without considering the water quality of the two sources. Anyone who knows anything about water treatment knows while iron is relatively easy to remove, manganese is a totally different animal. While manganese may be easy to remove on one water source, it could be very difficult to remove on another.

 In Chapter 3 of the AWWA ‘Iron and Manganese Removal Handbook, Second Edition’ the following statements are made:

• Oxidation of Fe and Mn: Manganese Dioxide (manganese in the oxidized form) forms a far finer floc (than ferric hydroxide), so fine at times that a granular media filter will not remove it.
• Organic Complexing of Fe and Mn: Operators experiencing difficulty in removing Fe and Mn (especially Mn) have uncovered some common factors:

o   A level of organic carbon (TOC) over 2 mg/L

o   Some level of ammonia or hydrogen sulfide in the feed water

• Adsorption Removal Methods (my summary): Manganese is best removed by adsorption on a manganese dioxide media like Greensand Plus or Pyrolusite. Iron is best removed by precipitation/filtration because iron adsorption blinds the media. Therefore, when both are present, the best process used is a combination of iron oxidation/filtration and manganese adsorption.

Further to the last point, oxidation of manganese takes a much longer time than iron where you are looking at from seconds to a minute for iron (Chapter 5, Chlorination) and up to up to 30 minutes or longer for manganese. Therefore in a filter system where an oxidant is dosed in the feed piping to the filters you can have adequate time in the piping and space in the filters above the media for iron oxidation (a few minutes) while allowing adsorption removal of the manganese.

There was also a very good article in AWWA’s Opflow in December 2021 titled “Evaluate and Optimize Manganese Treatment”. This article explains that the form and levels of manganese can vary considerably between wells. All manganese removal methods described in this article are based on sorption to the filter media. Therefore conditions must be optimized for the sorption mechanism on manganese oxide coated media including ensuring there is a free oxidant residual to provide a continuously regenerated adsorptive surface. The pH also impacts the Mn reaction kinetics with pHs above 7.0 more favorable.

As mentioned above, TOC, ammonia and H2S create a chlorine demand which impacts the chlorine available to oxidize the Fe and regenerate the filter media for Mn adsorption. Because the iron oxidation reaction is a lot faster compared to TOC, you typically get iron oxidation in the presence of TOC, as long as the iron is not organically bound to the TOC. When ammonia and H2S are present you may need a higher chlorine dose to overcome the demand from these compounds and provide sufficient iron oxidation. While you are not trying to remove manganese by oxidation/filtration, you still need a free oxidant residual to keep the manganese dioxide media regenerated so that is adsorbs the manganese. Therefore, a water with a high chlorine demand can impact the ability of the media to adsorb manganese. If ammonia is present, potassium permanganate may be a good option rather than chlorine as the oxidant because it does not react with the ammonia.

If iron and/or manganese is complexed with organics, the oxidation process can be significantly impacted. At a minimum, a higher oxidation dose and longer oxidation time will be required and if this works you could still create another problem with the formation of disinfection byproducts. Coagulation may be a better option to remove organically bound manganese and possibly iron also.

So clearly, iron and particularly manganese removal chemistry is not simple, and you can’t assume if the Fe and Mn levels on one water source are similar to another water source that a particular treatment technology will work equally on both. Other constituents in the water source impact removal performance and must be taken into consideration and ideally bench and/or pilot testing should be conducted to confirm the effectiveness of a proposed treatment process. To steal a saying from an old Mobile oil commercial, Manganese Removal Ain’t Manganese Removal!

The comments and opinions in this post are my own and not those of my employer.

Equipment Supply Contracts Should be Thrown Out and Started Again

 It is time for OEMs and Contractors to make a stand!

Ever since I have been involved in the capital supply business in North America, equipment procurement contracts in the water treatment industry have treated suppliers as banks for contractors and owners, with ridiculously long price validation periods, crippling liquidated damages for delays and uncapped liabilities. Well maybe the times are finally a-changin’!

In times of low inflation, stable government, no pandemics, reliable supply chains, no conflicts in regions with critical raw materials and a competitive contractor bidding market, perhaps the contracts of the past presented less risk to OEMs. How long ago has it been since we were in that situation??

Contracts that require the OEM to hold a bid price for 90 days before award and then when awarded, hold the price for 1-year before delivery (and I have seen up to 3 years) can’t be accepted anymore. That is being a bank for the contractor and owner where the OEM is financing the project, having to pay material suppliers well in advance of shipping the equipment (where delivery is often the major payment milestone) and absorb any price increases from the original quote from a vendor (which could be provided weeks before the bid) through submittal preparation and approval and notice to commence manufacturing which is often at least 6 months and longer for major process equipment. And that was a concern before the current supply chain issues! Not to mention preselection or direct bids as is often used for membrane systems, where following submittal approval the owner then goes to bid to contractors to install the equipment – the lead time from original quotes to actually getting the notice to commence manufacturing is often a year or longer. Engineers and owners are in for a rude awakening to OEM responses to contract terms for preselection or direct bids in the future…

Here are a few examples of how current market conditions have brought OEMs to the tipping point of outright rejection of traditional contract terms:

Following the concern with nickel supply because of the Ukrainian war, suppliers of stainless steel are only holding quoted prices for 24 hours. How can you bid a project with stainless vessels and piping without significant risk of margin erosion or even losing money? After the pandemonium in the nickel market a well-known manufacturer of stainless steel cartridge filter housings voided all quotes given before March 4. So what about the bids you used their pricing for prior to that date? Is that a case of Force Majeure?

Allen Bradley components, the predominantly specified controls for water treatment systems, already had stretched lead times from 8 weeks to 24 weeks earlier this year. Then there was a Corona Virus outbreak in Shenzen, China’s silicone valley, where some AB components are made – now AB is not committing to any delivery schedule… How then can you sign a contract with LDs when you don’t know when you can get a critical component required to operate the system? And what about contracts you signed in 2020/21 before there were these delays – that is certainly Force Majeure! I feel that controls components have become the toilet paper of the water industry with end users and equipment manufacturers hoarding them where they can, increasing leads times further...

Some may say that OEMs should just build in contingency to prices when it is known how long the price is to be held for. So when we bid a project in January where the price is to be held for 90 days before award, how do we know there is to be a war between Ukraine and Russia that starts in late February resulting in nickel prices skyrocketing in early March and stainless steel prices doubling in days? And that is only 40 days after the bid? And then ten vendors are listed on the bid, some you have never heard of, and you have to hope all ten will have same concerns as you and object to the same contract terms or put in the same contingency…

Some may say why not order materials as soon as submittals are approved to reduce the risk of price increases. This is the bank situation again. Then the OEM must pay for these materials often well before they are delivered, creating a cash flow problem, and what if the project is delayed? Will the owner accept and store the equipment when built and pay for it? Most likely not, but that is an option that should be seriously considered. Contractors on the other hand keep time sheets for work conducted and are paid for labor and materials received on site on a monthly basis. OEMs are not paid a penny for factory labor used in building the equipment each month and rarely paid for materials received in the factory.

Contractors and sometimes engineers often respond to OEM exceptions to LDs and unreasonable liability limits saying they are passing down what they have in their prime contract with the owner. Well, contractors and engineers need to show some guts and take exception to the contracts being passed to them by owners. In these times, nobody can guarantee meeting a schedule. Owners have to face reality and think of a different way to ensure contractors make their best effort to meet schedule and budget.

Currently, OEMs and contractors have a unique opportunity to change the draconian contract terms they have begrudgingly accepted for decades to terms that are fairer for all parties involved. If contractors and OEMs unite and show some gumption in objecting to these traditional one-sided contracts, OEMs may not need to be financing projects anymore and with better cash flows on projects, prices may actually come down, where lower margins are more feasible. That would be a win-win-win for OEMs, contractors and owners!

The comments and opinions in this post are my own and not those of my employer.

’21 Membrane Technology Conference Exceeds Expectations – The Wrap

With almost 600 attendees, around 200 more than expected, the 2021 Membrane Technology Conference (MTC) at West Palm Beach, July 19-23, was a resounding success! While this show normally has 900-1200 attendees, getting 60% of this number was a fantastic result for the first National water industry conference since the Covid cancellations (this show was cancelled the week before it was due to be held in early March 2020).

So why was MTC such a success?

For me, it was seeing the beaming faces of colleagues reuniting face to face after 18 months or more of working at home. The networking opportunities that can’t be replaced by Zoom calls. The large parties of conferences past were not held but the outdoor bar at Copper Blues became a popular hangout after dinners each night.

While the technical program had a few less sessions, the quality of the presentations I went to was excellent. One thing I noticed that was a lot different from other years was a lot livelier discussion after presentations – maybe people were bursting to be heard after being locked up for so long. Whatever the reason, it was great to hear these discussions.

There were less exhibitors this year, maybe 70% of other years, but the turnout was still strong and provided a great opportunity for delegates to catch up with manufacturers. Representatives from some manufacturers who didn’t exhibit were still present. Of course, there have been a lot of acquisitions since the last MTC in March 2019, so for instance, Dupont, Inge and Memcor shared a large booth for the first time.

 I think the timing also helped with a late surge of registrations. In late June/early July the country was very optimistic about vaccines slowing Covid and the Delta variant was in its early stages.

 What was new?

The hottest technology trend that I saw was a large number of presentations on novel high recovery RO processes that are now being adopted full-scale. We have heard of CCRO applications at past shows and also this one, but we are now hearing of Pulse Flow RO and Reverse Flow RO starting to be scaled up, so the folks at Dupont/Desalitech may have some competition in the near future. I still think these are niche technologies that are a fit in certain situations and not yet mainstream technologies, but I’m open to changing my mind as more data from different applications at full scale installations becomes available.

Congratulations to AMTA/AWWA for taking the risk with the first national in-person water conference since the Covid shut-downs and pulling off a great show! With this years MTC delayed 4 months due to Covid, it wont be long until MTC22 in Las Vegas, February 21-15. I can’t wait!

Westech joins Club of Foreign Aquired Companies

The announcement in late November that Westech was being acquired Swire, a diversified global group headquartered in the UK, signaled another previously US owned water treatment company being purchased by foreign interests. This follows Wigen being purchased by Metawater earlier in the year and Tonka/US Water and Avista being purchased by Kurita in recent years. Metawater also purchased Aqua-Aerobic Systems in 2016. Suez bought the RO business of Lanxess in late 2020 making it a very active year for acquisitions by foreign companies (of course Lanxess is German).

It raises the question; why are foreign investors so interested in acquiring home grown US water treatment companies while large US companies are not? A few decades ago there was US Filter who quickly gobbled up a lot of water companies to create the US Filter empire before these were eventually sold off to Veolia in 1999…..we also had GE getting into the water treatment business in 2006 with the notable acquisition of membrane company Zenon which has since been sold to Suez. But in the last 10 years the purchases have mostly all been off shore with companies such as Suez, Veolia, Siemens, Xylem, Kurita and Metawater picking up the best of the local companies. The notable exception is Dupont’s acquisition spree in 2019 (see previous post).

 

I don’t know much about M&As but from my perspective it seems like US investors are not interested in the steady but unspectacular rate of growth of the water treatment market. The potential for water treatment products in a drier and more crowded planet is alluring, but those companies that have bought into it expecting water will be the ‘new oil’ have been disappointed by the long sales cycles for capital infrastructure and government procurement processes and rules. You can’t just buy say an OEM in the desalination market, cut costs, standardize the products, increase revenue then flip the company… In fact, for large custom capital equipment you standardize at your own peril as some large OEMs have found out when trying to cut costs then becoming uncompetitive for large custom projects.

 

I understand that as a small self-funded company you can only grow so much before outside investment is needed to provide the resources to take that next growth leap, but from a local industry perspective it is disappointing there are not large local companies willing to invest in so many successful local homegrown businesses.

The comments and opinions in this post are my own and not those of my employer.

Non-Communication of Bid Results...

With a lack of in-person networking events, conferences, etc. I don’t have any breaking industry news to talk about lately. So, I’m going to ramble about a pet peeve of mine – not receiving any response or feedback when you are an unsuccessful bidder…

To submit a bid/proposal for process equipment requires a lot of work for no return unless you win the bid. Just pricing a custom designed piece of equipment can require quotes from dozens of vendors and many hours of work by a number of engineers combing detailed specifications, not to mention preparing the proposal and sometimes even preparing custom drawings and lifecycle cost analyses for the bid. The very least the recipient of the bid can do is inform the unsuccessful bidders who won the bid and the decision-making process uses in selecting the winner. 

Ideally I also like to see the price spread of the bids or an evaluation matrix that was used so I know if we were competitive and may have a chance of winning next time or if we should not waste our efforts. Often that feedback is provided, particularly for government projects where it is a requirement to provide a bid tab, but there are also many cases where no feedback is provided at all. I haven’t heard back on an industrial job bid a few months ago where we were begged to submit a bid and had to drop everything to get this together in less than 2 weeks, it was submitted at 11pm on a Friday night (bids due by 12pm) and since then it has been all crickets… I did find out indirectly after the bid that we were just there to provide another number so I haven’t pursued a response (plus I was a bit bitter about not being seriously considered after the owner pleading for us to bid). You can’t win them all but a response that we were not successful and why would be nice.

Here are my rankings from worst to best on the types of bids that provide feedback and why I think this is the case:

 

1. Industrial Projects

These are the worst for feedback. My theory for this is that to the owner, this is a one-off transaction and they don’t think they will need to bid this out again, so who cares what the losing bidders think… It is these projects, bidding either direct to the owner or via a consulting firm, where more often than not I have not had any feedback after a bid without badgering them. Good luck getting bidders if they need to rebid the project!

 

2. Design-Build and CMAR Bids

These can be confusing where the contractors ask for firm pricing at 30%, 70% and maybe 90% design and you never know if a selection will be made at the earlier stage quotes or the contractor is just checking the budget. That is often not communicated, so you can put in a lot of work on a proposal when a decision will not be made yet. On the other hand, you could throw a swag budget number out there at 30% design and find out a few months later someone else was selected based on a lower price… I think the contractors like to keep their options open and not commit too early unless they really need to pick a vendor early to help with the design.

 

3. Preselection Bids

In this case you are often sending bids to the design engineer or the owner, where the engineer makes the evaluation based on a selection criterion. Typically, you find out formally who won, but often no reason or a very vague reason is provided for the selection. So there is little you can learn about why you were not selected. These bids are the ones that often require specific system drawings and detailed lifecycle analyses. Where very little feedback is provided, I suspect the engineer or owner had a preferred bidder from the start and you were just making up the numbers. If the bids are sent to a municipality, in most cases you will get a detailed bid tab after the evaluation is complete (see Municipal Bids).

 

4. Municipal Bids

Where a bid is made directly to a municipality, it is a requirement that a bid tab be provided showing the ranked prices submitted. Selection criteria is usually very transparent and a manufacturer is left in no doubt where it finished up and why.

 

There are exceptions when there are some qualitative evaluation factors used as well as price with percentages or points applied to each factor to select a winner. This is where the grey kicks in and the owner (or engineer) can massage the numbers to pick who they want. The evaluation matrix will be published but the results can be very subjective. This also applies to direct/pre-selection bids.

 

5. Design-Bid-Build Contractor Bids

These are bids where you are providing your price to contractors on bid day and the contractors are submitting a total project bid to the owner. There are usually no grey areas here – the contactor will go with the lowest price in nearly all cases unless an OEM has a special relationship or the contractor has had a bad experience with an OEM. If the contractor must write in the suppliers on the bid form, you know within 24 hours if you were selected. If not, you rely on the honesty of the winning contractor to go with the low bidder on bid day and hope there is not post bid backroom deals done (if you were low on bid day). It is possible to get an idea of where the competitor pricing was if you know one of the bidding contractors well enough who will give some feedback. It is in a contractor’s best interest to provide some feedback if he thinks you may be working together on a future project. Otherwise, there is no way to find out if you were way low, or way high.

 

With all that said, it is nearly impossible to predict what feedback you will get despite the type of bid unless you have bid to that entity in the past. If you suspect you are just making up the numbers with another bidder preferred, you could very well be wasting your time and don’t expect any useful post bid feedback.

The comments and opinions in this post are my own and not those of my employer.

More Membrane Market Consolidation!

Suez Purchase of Lanxess’s RO Product Line

We may be stuck in our homes or offices in these unusual times but that hasn’t stopped players in the membrane market from making some interesting acquisitions in the past few months. The biggest recent news is Suez’s purchase of the RO membrane portfolio from Lanxess. In 2019 we saw a membrane manufacturer (Dupont) buying an OEM (Memcor), and now we have an OEM getting into the membrane manufacturing business. I am wondering what Suez’s motives are here. 

One of the points in the July 16 press release from Suez says the acquisition will “expand its international RO membrane production capabilities and expertise to help meet growing global demand”. See here for full release. That implies to me that Suez will not only use the membranes for its own RO products, but also plans to sell these to other OEMs and end users – unless it will just be chasing the RO membrane replacement market, which is significant. I doubt other OEMs will be interested in buying membranes from a competitor where there are plenty of alternative RO membrane suppliers available.

Now if Suez is mainly targeting the membrane replacement market, that is a different story. Lanxess has had very competitive pricing and if that pricing is sustainable, and not just an attempt to get reference installations, Suez may be able to pick up a good chunk of business. Not being known as a membrane company and with the RO membrane market pretty much commoditized, I think it was hard for Lanxess to break into the market. Now with the backing and reputation of Suez, that should provide more opportunities to bid projects and then it will just depend on whether the pricing remains competitive. Suez will also provide instant references from the RO systems it sells and from replacements at existing systems.

So now that I have thrown this idea around a bit, I think I have worked it out – Suez plans to use the Lanxess membranes in its own RO systems (which is a no brainer) and will also be chasing the RO membrane replacement market, but will not necessarily be expecting to sell many membranes to other OEMs, which makes sense. This will certainly put a hole in sales for the major RO membrane manufacturer who has been private labelling RO elements for Suez up to now.

Metawater Purchase of Wigen Water Technologies

I also must mention the purchase by Metawater of Wigen Water Technologies in April. See press release. While I am an employee of Wigen, I think all would agree the acquisition will certainly provide Wigen with the resources to pursue larger projects and grow faster than would be possible as a small business. It is also a reasonably seamless purchase where there are no management changes, Wigen retains its name and operates as a subsidiary of Metawater. Aqua Aerobic Systems, which was purchased by Metawater in 2016 has virtually no product overlaps with Wigen. So, I would say this is one of the less controversial acquisitions in the past 12 months.

Who is next?

There are still some smaller membrane OEMs out there ripe for the picking for larger companies wanting to expand in the market and maybe there are some larger OEMs hurting in these tough economic times and looking to exit the market so let’s see what happens in the next 6 months!

The comments and opinions in this post are my own and not those of my employer.

Filling the Conference Gap

In past years at this time I would be writing about technology developments and industry news I had picked up at the AMTA/AWWA Membrane Technology Conference (MTC) and the California WateReuse Conference in March but as we all know, this year these conferences and many more have been cancelled due to the Coronavirus outbreak. These two shows were one week away when most of the country started to go into lockdown, which was a shame for the many who had put so much hard work into planning these events, but obviously the right decisions were made to not cram so many people together in meeting rooms, exhibit halls and social events during these times. Also, as there had been so many attendee and exhibitor withdrawals, it was probably not feasible for the shows to proceed anyway.

Now with AWWA’s ACE20 and many other regional shows being cancelled through July so far, how will this impact the water industry in the short and long term?

In the short term, personally, I am missing out on the networking at these conferences where stronger relationships are developed from direct interactions with engineers, water utilities and manufacturers/service providers. It is through these interactions that you can find out about upcoming projects and industry developments well in advance of public announcements. I know Dupont was really looking forward to being the major sponsor at MTC following the acquisition of several membrane businesses in late 2019 and as I noted in a previous post, I was hoping to spend some time with Dupont at the show to see how these acquisitions would impact the relationship with its existing OEM customers. I am sure many similar meetings would have been planned at MTC. In the everyday hustle and bustle of working on projects and chasing new opportunities when you feel like you are always in firefighting mode, these conferences are important opportunities to break away and spend some quality time to look at new technologies, develop new relationships and strategize with current and future business partners.

The Coronavirus cancellations hit just when the busy spring conference season was starting and now that season is wiped out, we will have a void of at least five months with no shows. For manufacturers and consultants with well-established networks I don’t think there will be long term damage to industry relationships and finding new projects. This pause in shows is actually providing an opportunity to explore and utilize video conferencing and ancient means of communication like talking on the phone. Companies looking to introduce new technologies or enter new markets will be more impacted where the shows are an important avenue to launch these companies or technologies.

So far, I am not seeing a pause in projects bidding, although a few bid dates have been extended, but nothing cancelled yet. If anything, the bidding seems a little busier, maybe because engineers and owners have more time to get these bids on the street and are hoping by the time contractors are awarded the shutdowns will be relaxed and the projects can break ground in late summer. I don’t know if that means some projects are being brought forward so that here will be a lull in bids over summer/fall. I will update on that in a few months.

Long term there could be an impact on the attendance at conferences. Personally, with less travel I have been able to work on a few papers, write a few project case-studies, sort out some projection software issues, and other items I have had on the backburner for years. It has me wondering if it would be more productive for me to possibly cut back on some of the shows. I’m sure others will be thinking the same. There will also be reluctance to travel as much due to the risk of catching a virus, at least for the next year or two if not longer. For exhibitors, this pause in shows is probably also providing time for some reflection on the return they are getting from committing expenditure and resources to these shows and could result in some prioritization on what shows they exhibit at and redirecting these resources into webinars, etc – I am seeing a lot more webinars on new technologies and product information lately, obviously in response to less conferences and sales travel. Normally I wouldn’t have time to watch these, but with no travel I have been happy to sign in.

More Virtual Conferences?

We are seeing some of the cancelled shows now going to be presented virtually and depending on the success of the online versions, there could be more demand for this format. If so, the conference organizers will have to work out how to monetize the virtual offerings to make up for much-needed revenue from the conferences to keep these organizations going. As an industry we need organizations like AWWA and AMTA, plus local AWWA and WEA Sections, to be healthy and active so we have forums for technology exchanges, networking, training, government lobbying, regulation setting and many other services these groups provide. It is in our best interests to keep these organizations strong. I also do work on the industrial water treatment market and you only have to look at how fragmented that market is in terms of conferences and networking opportunities to really appreciate what we have in the municipal market with organizations such at AWWA, WEA, AMTA and WateReuse.

The comments and opinions in this post are my own and not those of my employer.

Dupont goes on Membrane Technology Buying Spree!

I was just about to write a post speculating on how DuPont will integrate the recently acquired

BASF/Inge and Memcor Microfiltration/Ultrafiltration membrane products into its portfolio when it came to my attention that it was announced today they have just come to an agreement to also acquire Desalitech! Thoughts of Black Friday deals come to mind at this time of the year, but I won’t go there…

The first acquisition announced in late September was that of the Inge UF membrane product line from BASF which makes sense to me as it will complement Dupont’s range of membrane products where this membrane is a very durable inside-out PES membrane with some benefits over DuPont’s existing IntegraFlux outside-in PVDF membrane in challenging applications, plus established customers in Europe. It also does not change the relationships with existing OEM customers who would potentially buy from both membrane module suppliers.

The shortly after announced acquisition of Memcor from Evoqua is a little more complicated to work out. In my opinion, I don’t see how the Memcor MF module complements DuPont’s existing membrane portfolio since it is outside-in PVDF and from what I can see is losing a lot of market share to new higher surface area UF modules, including DuPont’s - unless DuPont wanted to acquire Memcor’s existing global customer base and add a submerged module to the portfolio, although for non-MBR applications, I rarely see submerged MF/UF systems being installed these days. DuPont wanting to add a MBR product to the portfolio makes the most sense and that seems to be the consensus amongst others speculating from the outside. I don’t know what percentage of Memcor’s sales are from MBRs, but it seems like DuPont is acquiring a lot of other Memcor products just to get an MBR membrane.

I was asking some of my DuPont contacts at recent conferences about the acquisitions but understandably they can’t disclose any details until the deals are finalized at the end of the year, plus it is my understanding all the details of how the businesses will combine are still being worked out. I did also talk to some Memcor/Evoqua employees and they said the whole engineering group will be coming over to DuPont. That raises a big question to me. Is DuPont thinking of not just being a membrane module supplier, but also expanding into the membrane system market and becoming an OEM? Now that would open up a whole can of worms!

As an OEM you would now have DuPont competing against their membrane module customers in many instances. That is going to be very sticky to manage and will make other OEMs very wary about disclosing project information when asking for quotes or just going to other membrane module suppliers. If DuPont is just looking at building MBR systems, there would be less conflict with its customers, since DuPont is currently not in the MBR market, although some of its customers for UF modules do also build MBRs so there would be some competition with these OEMs.

Does acquisition of Desalitech confirm DuPont is becoming an OEM?

Now how do we interpret the recent announcement of the pending acquisition of Desalitech? Desalitech has a proprietary high recovery Reverse Osmosis process and I believe a lot of the time uses Dupont’s FilmTec membranes in this process, although it has not been exclusive. Desalitech uses a number of fab-shops around the US to build its systems, has its own salesforce and is essentially an OEM. So, what the heck is behind this move! I have spoken to folks at Desalitech and some of their reps in the past and they have said they are not competing against conventional RO OEMs and are only looking at applications that need a recovery higher than what conventional RO can achieve and want to work with conventional RO OEMs to build their systems – but that is a whole lot of baloney. I hope DuPont hasn’t bought into that and think they can become an OEM with the Desalitech system and not run into conflict with their traditional RO membrane customers, who incidentally would make up the largest percent of sales for all of their membrane products. That would be suicide for them. If DuPont licenses the technology to OEMs and stops manufacturing themselves that would make a lot more sense.

I just heard the news about the Desalitech acquisition and may be jumping to conclusions, but it is fun to speculate. Unfortunately, there are no conferences left this year to hear what the industry may be saying about this. But the Memcor and Desalitech acquisitions do suggest DuPont may be looking at some sort of involvement in the membrane process equipment supply market and that will result in some interesting discussions with their existing OEM customers. I am sure all will be revealed regarding DuPont’s strategy in the membrane market in early 2020. Should make for a very interesting AMTA/AWWA Membrane Technology Conference in Phoenix in March!

The comments and opinions in this post are my own and not those of my employer.

Convergence of the Microfiltration/Ultrafiltration Module Market is Here!

While the manufacturers of microfiltration (MF) and ultrafiltration (UF) modules have been resisting the commoditization of this market, as has happened with reverse osmosis (RO) elements, they have unwittingly brought this upon themselves in the past year.

In chasing the Pall/Asahi MF module retrofit market first Scinor, then Dupont (previously Dow) and

Pall Rack with Asahi UNA-620A Modules

now Toray have all developed a direct replacement module for the Asahi UNA-620A module. This makes the design of an Universal/Open Platform MF/UF Module Rack that can fit 4 different modules easy – one design for all just like a RO skid! The design of the ancillary equipment for backwashing and CIPs still varies between each module to some degree but the hardest part of designing a universal MF/UF system has just been solved. I mentioned this to one of the manufacturers of the retrofit modules at a recent conference and he hadn’t realized how his company was helping to commoditize the MF/UF module market. His company is also helping Pall where in recent years they had been shut out of the market for Universal/Open Platform systems, which are increasingly becoming the norm for new MF/UF installations, but now Pall can say their standard rack is Universal because it can accommodate four different modules…

So, in the process of chasing some quick bucks for retrofitting Pall/Asahi installations, these companies have driven the MF/UF module market faster towards commoditization and ultimately a much more competitive and less profitable marketplace.

I don’t want to oversimplify the ability to interchange these membranes on a MF/UF system, where different cleaning and backwashing requirements have to be understood and designed for and accommodated for in the system programming, plus some of these modules have different integrity testing procedures and membrane surface areas. But Pall has now been given a free pass into the Universal MF/UF system market, a market that over the past 4 years has allowed smaller OEMs using Toray, Dupont and other non-exclusive modules to win a good-sized installations while Pall was excluded.

I haven’t seen a spec yet with all the Asahi membrane clones listed but when doing a presentation at a major engineering firm recently who has championed the Open Platform system, it was not lost upon their membrane experts that this was now possible. I am sure very soon we will see such a spec.

Dupont Acquires Inge and Memcor Membranes to Expand Membrane Portfolio

I can’t not mention the recent big news in the MF/UF market where Dupont acquired Inge membranes from BASF and Memcor membranes from Evoqua over a space of two weeks late September/early October. This gives Dupont three different types of membranes, all that can be used for the same applications. I am interested to see how they promote the different membranes without causing internal conflicts. The word is Memcor was valued for their MBR membrane which Dupont did not have. I am sure the marketing strategy will be revealed at upcoming conferences (I’ll be at their booth at IWC next month)!

AWWA Aces it at ACE19 in Denver!

Every time I start to wonder if AWWA’s Annual Conference and Exposition (ACE) is starting to lose steam they have one in Denver that brings back the mojo and feeling that this is a really important event for the water industry. I think this year’s ACE in Denver was the best since…the last ACE in Denver in 2013. I don’t know if it is because AWWA is based there so a lot more effort is put into making it a great event or if people just love to come to Denver. Since I live here it is hard for me to compare Denver as a place to visit compared to other cities but I certainly think the convention center location downtown near hotels and restaurants etc, and less distractions such as casinos and theme parks makes it one of the better locations.

What was so good about it? I don’t know the official attendance numbers, but it felt like there were a lot more people at the show this year. As an exhibitor, the exhibit hall seemed to have a busier atmosphere right through the end of the show on the Wednesday. I usually plan on doing a walk around the hall on the last morning when it is typically quiet, but I was too busy with visitors at our booth which is great. I went to some of the morning technical sessions and these were very well attended and there seemed to be a buzz downstairs at the presentations with people rushing between sessions. Maybe the fact that there are less distractions away from the convention at Denver meant more people stayed at the show.

No junket no reps?

ACE is certainly less of a party than WEFTEC and I think it draws delegates more for technical content than going to party. I have been going to ACE and exhibiting for 20 years now and I recall there used to be a lot more people going for a junket. Perhaps that is why there are so many fewer manufacturers’ sales reps attending ACE now. Years ago all rep firms sent at least a few of their sales guys to ACE. Now, many rep firms may send one person or nobody at all. That is probably over 1000 people out of the exhibit hall right there (they don’t go to presentations). The quality of attendees in terms of key consultants and water system personnel is still very high and those going on a junket normally aren’t a target for the exhibitors, but with less wining and dining of water industry fat cats who probably now just go to WEFTEC, there is less incentive for the sales reps to attend. Many manufacturers see shows such as WEFTEC and ACE as opportunities to network and train with their reps. With less reps at ACE some manufacturers are questioning the value of exhibiting (and I have had some reps who say we should just go to WEFTEC which would then give them an excuse not to go to ACE). These exhibitors really miss the point where their main target should be showing their wares to the quality attendees at the show. To do that you have to put some thought into how to get the best from the show and not just turn up hoping a few leads will accidentally find your booth.

I don’t know if AWWA should try to attract more reps to help retain more exhibitors or concede these to WEFTEC and concentrate on keeping the show’s quality technical program and other activities. Without doubt, AWWA should try put this year’s ACE19 in a bottle and replicate it as much as possible every year rather than just in Denver.

The opinions expressed in this post are my own and not those of my employer.