The Conference Circuit
The first MCA UF/MF Training Seminar will take place on Sunday 21st May, 2006, immediately preceding the EDS Conference in Montpelier, France, on 21st – 24th May, www.desline.com. The seminar theme is UF/MF for RO pre-treatment in desalination and wastewater recycling applications. The seminar will review the case for UF/MF pre-treatment, aid technology selection, and help in overcoming problems in operating plants. Click here to download the seminar flyer and registration form. The UK’s interest in UF/MF for Swimming Pool treatment continues to progress at a snail’s pace, unfortunately lagging behind our more far sighted brethren in Germany. At the recent CIWEM meeting on this subject, UF/MF scarcely received a mention, and it will probably take some health related incidents for this sector to receive the boost it deserves. I will be attending the National Water Research Institute’s 4th Microfiltration Conference to be held at Anaheim, California on 20th and 21st March, www.nwri-usa.org. The Conference will be followed by an MBR Short Course on Wednesday 22nd, led by Professor Simon Judd. Let me know if you are going to be there.

Publications Update
Dr Mark Wilf of Hydranautics has been writing a book entitled ‘Reverse Osmosis, Nanofiltration, and Hybrid Systems; Process, Design, and Applications’. There have been a number of contributors for individual chapters, and I have provided a section on UF/MF pre-treatment. My contribution reviews the state of the art for UF/MF pre-treatment, and compares economics and performance of UF/MF with conventional pre-treatment technology. The book is due to be published later this year. Look out for a UF pre-treatment paper being published in the Journal of Membrane Science, by J Zhang and colleagues from Wuhan University in China. I refereed this paper at the back end of last year, and it contains some interesting data on a comparative pilot test on a seawater feed for a proposed desalination project. The Chinese love of advanced technology has ensured that UF/ MF is often first choice for RO pre-treatment, and China now leads the World in this field both in terms of installed capacity, and proposed projects.

Assignments
The Drinking Water Industry in England and Wales has by now more or less completed its cryptosporidium programme. However, opportunities still arise for membranes from time to time, and I’ve recently been involved with Bristol Water in assessing the feasibility of using UF/MF technology for the removal of algae from a reservoir source.

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