KWR researcher Roberta Hofman reports from the Water Quality Technology Conference 2010
While in the Netherlands it is cold and rainy, I am sitting outside under palm trees, enjoying the sun! No, unfortunately not all day, just during the breaks of the WQTC, which this year is being held in Savannah, Georgia.
This morning the conference started with some local historical persons, who had come to wish us a good conference. There were seven parallel sessions, on various topics. First I went to three presentations on Ion Exchange and AOP Applications. Ion Exchange (like Magnetic Ion Exchange (MIEX) and Suspended Ion Exchange (SIX)) can be used as a pretreatment method, in order to make an advanced oxidation process (AOP) like UV/H2O2 more efficient.
Cheryl Bertelkamp, who just started as a PhD student, partly at KWR, gave a very good presentation on the comparison of granular activated carbon filtration and ion exchange as a pretreatment method at Dunea. In the “Nanoparticles: Treatment and Removal†session, there was a very interesting presentation on the effect of e.g. natural organic matter on nanoparticle removal. In the afternoon I attended the session on membrane fouling issues, where Arne Verliefde gave two presentations, one on the work he is doing together with Emile Cornelissen and Sabrina Botton at KWR. The focus in this session was on how to monitor and characterize membrane fouling. One presentation was on the effect of nanoparticles. Although these particles are so small that in general it has been assumed that they will pass the membranes without any problems, it was shown that these particles often cause a lot of problems. The mechanisms involved were shown.
In the evening there was a very interesting presentation by PWN Technologies. In Andijk (The Netherlands) they are building a new pretreatment plant based on SIX.
Roberta Hofman-Caris
