August 2011

Technology to Drive the Fluid Treatment and Flow Market

There are many new products and concepts which will influence the markets for fluid treatment and flow control technology.  Development is not taking place as fast as it is in semiconductors or pharmaceuticals.  Nevertheless, the market leaders of the future will be those with improved technology and lower life cycle costs and not those with the lowest initial price.

These new developments are tracked continually in various McIlvaine publications (www.mcilvainecompany.com).  Here are some of them:

Materials

Industeel has a large research facility in France and is continually striving to improve the materials which are used in pumps, scrubbers, clarifiers, stacks and other equipment.  Recently, they have developed a whole new family of duplex stainless steels.

Lhoist has developed a high surface area calcium sorbent for capture of air pollutants in flue gas.

Kemira has introduced bromine compounds for mercury oxidation and is also building a plant in the U.S. to use flue gas desulfurization gypsum to produce a high quality paper coating.

Hitachi has a new system to make hydrochloric acid from power plant stack gases.

Instrumentation

Two companies have developed multi metals analyzers which can continuously measure each of the toxic metals in flue gas.

In Situ has an improved dissolved oxygen monitor which eliminates the need for chemicals and provides accuracy at low ppm measurements in ultrapure water.

A number of companies such as Rockwell, Neuco, Siemens and Emerson have developed optimization systems for air and water pollution control.

Equipment

Dow has introduced a 16 inch diameter reverse osmosis membrane which can reduce energy consumption significantly.

Siemens just announced a combination of electrodialysis and electrodeionization for desalination of seawater at lower energy cost than either reverse osmosis or thermal processes.

Nalco and Argonne have partnered in development of electrodeionization to more economically manufacture biofuels.

W. L. Gore has a new stack gas membrane which will remove mercury.

A number of pump and valve manufacturers are making their products smarter. This means higher reliability, lower maintenance and less energy consumption.

Pump manufacturers are improving designs to recover energy from reverse osmosis processes and make desalination economical.

Duechting, Weir and KSB have developed ceramic pumps to handle flue gas limestone slurries with flows of more than 50,000 gpm. The ceramic material has proven able to handle the abrasion and corrosion encountered in the application.

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