AWC® was proud to host a Membrane Autopsy Workshop organized by ALADYR (Asociacion Latino Americana de Desalacion y Reuso) at our facility in Plant City at the end of October. The 25 attendees consisted of End Users, System Integrators and Engineering Companies from various countries in Latin America.
The workshop started with a brief overview of the various autopsy techniques used in identifying membrane fouling and/or damage. The participants were then divided into three groups for the hands-on sessions:
- RO and UF Membrane Performance Testing, Integrity Testing, and Cleaning Studies.
- Visual Inspection, Foulant Collection, Foulant Solubility Tests, and Fujiwara Testing.
- Electron Microscopy and Elemental Analysis (SEM/EDS), Prismatic Elemental Delineation with Superimposed Elemental Imaging (PED®/SEI®), ATR-FTIR, Contact Angle Measurements, and Raman Microscopy.
The attendees were able to perform many of the tests, and were allowed to operate the SEM/EDS and to obtain PED®/SEI® images in real time.
The workshop concluded at 2:00 PM after which participants were transported to the Tampa Desal RO Plant for the final part of the ALADYR technical program.
We thank ALADYR for giving AWC® the opportunity to share our technical capabilities and resources with the Latin American members of the membrane desalination community. It would be our pleasure to host more workshops for the ALADYR membership in the future.
ALADYR is a non- is a non-profit organization. Its purpose is to promote, protect and develop technologies and projects in desalination and water treatment, water reuse and low consumption standards for sustainability and environmental respect by bringing people together to share their knowledge and experience in order to deliver a better water future for Latin America and the rest of the world.
AWC® has been a member of ALADYR since 2016 and we will continue to proudly support ALADYR and their objectives.
