Water. Desalination + reuse
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AMTA/AWWA MEMBRANE TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE REVIEW JOint cOnference & eXpOsitiOn tee, checks out the exhibition. led the traditional AMTA drama production satirizing extrapolated from his better known work on microbial fuel cells into the use of the technique for desalination. l 25-28 feBrUary 2013 l san antOniO, teXas, Usa Opening ceremOny Robert Puente, the president and CEO of the San Antonio Water System (SAWS) welcomed the delegates attending the opening ceremony of the conference, reminding them that over the next five years SAWS would be spending over US$ 1 billion in capital costs on water and wastewater This includes the new 10 MGD (95,000 m3/d) groundwater desalination system (for which the 10 MGD (37,850 m3/d) first-phase contract has now been let - see Contracts & Tenders (Page 6). The first phase would come online in 2016, said Puente. He also drew his audience's attention to the nation's largest direct recycled water for irrigation in Bear County, and the second largest aquifer storage recharge system. Puente was followed by Jorge Arroyo, who leads the Texas Water Development Board's Innovative Water Technology Program. He predicted that desalination capacity would double in Texas over the next 20 years. Membrane technology had provided the state with "game-changing tools", he said. Arroyo concentrated his address on three topics. The first, desalination, he said, had increased by a factor of five over the last ten years. Considering the abundance of brackish water in the state, coupled with the challenges in accessing conventional water supply sources, great opportunities were going to be available for the membrane industry. The second area addressed by Arroyo was what he called "the combination of wastewater treatment, wastewater reclamation and water reuse". More and more communities around the state were realising what a resource wastewater was, he said, and the state was anticipating that 10% of water supplies in the next 50 years were going to come from reuse. "Based on what we have seen happening in the last couple of years, those projections are just a bit on the shy side," he commented. Water conservation was the final topic Arroyo addressed. This provided opportunities for membrane use, because water conservation was becoming an economically viable option for power generation and other industrial applications. Samer Adham was also one of those invited to speak at the opening ceremony, and as head of the Conoco Phillips Global Water Sustainability Center in Doha, Samer Adham from Qatar presented at both the preconference workshop on renewable energies and the conference opening.. Qatar, unsurprisingly he chose membrane use for water in the oil & gas industry. The industry, he said, handles about three or four barrels of water for every barrel of oil produced. In a very detailed and wide-ranging talk, he looked at produced water, enhanced oil recovery with injected water, ceramic v polymeric membranes, steam-assisted gravity drainage using evaporators and the potential for membrane distillation in the industry. cOnference papers and pOsters The conference planning committee, made up of volunteers from both AMTA and AWWA, put together a world-class program with 116 presentations and 34 posters, as well as the preconference workshops. Session topics included membrane material development, potable reuse, fouling control, and industrial treatment, along with various other membrane filtration and desalination topics. Sold out tours visited the Canyon Regional Water Authority and the San Antonio Water System UF Facilities. JOint awards Several joint AMTA-AWWA awards were presented: Hall of Fame: Ben Mohlenhoff and Hany Said; Membrane Plant of the Year: City of Boca Raton's Glades Road Water Treatment Plant; Robert O Vernon Operator of the Year: July Adams, Southmost Regional Water Authority; Best Paper: Jim Lozier, CH2M Hill; Best Poster: Fred Vance, Kemira; Best Student Papers: Bryan Coday, Colorado School of Mines, and Anwar Sadmani, University of Toronto. l May-June 2013 | Desalination & Water Reuse | 41 |