CONSTRUCTION

COMPANY NEWS

GAS TURBINE

NEW PRODUCTS

Many projects, mergers and acquisitions are detailed in monthly updates in the Market Report’s Chapters under Industry Analysis. Click on the links below to view current updates for each industry.

U.S. new residential construction statistics for March 2011 show privately-owned housing starts in March were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 549,000. This is 7.2 percent above the revised February estimate of 512,000, but is 13.4 percent below the March 2010 rate of 634,000.

Gains in new-home production were seen across the board in March, with upward movement registered in both the single- and multifamily sectors as well as three out of four regions. On the single-family side, a 7.7 percent gain to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 422,000 units partially offset a big decline in the previous month. Multifamily starts also gained back a portion of the ground they lost earlier, with a 5.8 percent increase to 127,000 units.

Regionally, housing starts posted double-digit gains of 32.3 percent in the Midwest and 27.6 percent in the West, as well as a 5.4 percent gain in the Northeast. The South was the only region to post a decline in housing starts in March, of 3.3 percent.

Building permits issued, which can be an indicator of future building activity, were at 594,000 which is an increase of 11.2 percent over the February rate. Single-family permits rose 5.7 percent to 405,000 units, while multifamily permits rose 25.2 percent to 189,000 units.

The Northeast was the only region to not post a gain in building permits this March, remaining unchanged from the previous month. Meanwhile, the Midwest posted a 6.9 percent gain, the South, a 6.3 percent gain, and the West, a 37.1 percent gain.

Plans were unveiled recently for Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia which will be exactly one mile high.

It will have 275 floors and be twice the height of Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which is currently the world’s tallest building.

Kingdom Tower is expected to cost £12billion to construct and it will take 12 minutes to reach the top in a lift.

Members of the Saudi royal family unveiled the proposals showing that the megastructure will include hotels, offices apartments and a shopping centre.

The tower will have 12 million cubic square feet of interior space – 12 times more than Canary Wharf in East London. And it will be five times higher than the Shard of Glass in South London which will be Britain’s tallest building when completed next year.

Kingdom Tower will be financed by the Saudi royal family-owned Kingdom Holding Company which is chaired by Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and is the nation’s largest company.

Hollingsworth & Vose has been nominated for the EDANA Innovation Award for its Technostat® Plus filter media. Technostat Plus is an electret air filter media for use in respirators, HVAC, medical, vacuum cleaners and cabin air filter applications.

H&V's Technostat Plus is an extension of the Technostat product family, which achieves higher filter media performance and enhanced processability. Technostat products offer high sub-micron efficiency, high dust holding capacity, extremely low pressure drop and a stable shelf life. As with H&V's recently introduced Capaceon® product platform, Technostat breaks the link between filter media basis weight and performance. For example, one media design offers pressure drops which are nearly half that of current media at the same basis weight. Another design retains the same performance level of current Technostat while offering a 20-25% basis weight reduction. Technostat Plus offers filter designers greater flexibility and increased life time value.

European Nonwovens Industry Association EDANA will present their annual awards on April 12th, the opening day of the INDEX 11 show in Geneva. These awards are described by EDANA as "the highest accolade for the best examples of excellence in our industry".

Noveko International Inc. announces that significant advances have been achieved in its various air filtration related segments in the U.S., European and Asian real estate markets and in the Montreal area where a growing portfolio of buildings are equipped with Noveko™ filters, as well as in the transportation industry and the swine industry.

"We are very proud of these breakthroughs, which give us access to new high-potential niches. Among these, we are notably targeting luxury residential towers in New York, office towers, shopping centres and the hospitality industry as a whole. We are already in talks with major managers and players in these real estate markets. We are therefore confident that the commercialization of our filtration solutions will accelerate in the near term while the various developments in progress materialize in all our filtration related segments," indicated Mr. Alain Bolduc, President and Chief Operating Officer of the Company.

The portfolio of Montreal area buildings that have opted for Noveko air filtration solutions continues to grow. About 10 office and commercial buildings are currently equipped with Noveko filters.

Conclusive experience, effectiveness, durability, energy and cost savings: a sustainable solution

"The experience with our proven clients is acting as a growth driver and stimulating our sales. After more than a year of use, our filters still required no cleaning and retained their filtration capacity," added Simon Labrecque, Vice-President, Filtration of Noveko Inc. The results of the tests conducted on the Noveko filters installed for over 12 months in buildings in the Greater Montreal Area confirmed that because they cause less air restriction and therefore require less power from ventilation motors, users achieved significant energy savings related to their ventilation systems of approximately 10 to 15%.

It is the integration of antimicrobial agents into the filter fibres, thanks to Noveko's patented antimicrobial filtration technology, that protects the filters against deterioration due to the action of microorganisms and provides them with these specific properties. Noveko filters can easily be cleaned on-site.

To meet the expected growth in demand for the Company's filtration solutions, the filter design, development and production activities of the subsidiary Epurair have been moved into its new premises in Boucherville, Quebec. The purchase of new cutting-edge equipment has also contributed to significantly increase the new plant's productivity and production capacity.

Noveko International Inc. offers solutions in the environmental and medical fields worldwide. Through its subsidiaries, the Company specializes primarily in the following business segments: the development, manufacturing and marketing of derivative products from its patented antimicrobial filtration technologies, mainly air filters, surgical masks and respirators, as well as other products with antibacterial properties such as hand sanitizers - and the development, manufacturing and marketing of medical equipment, primarily portable real-time ultrasound scanners for use in human and veterinary medicine.

Sandler AG will be presenting its extensive product range at the Techtextil 2011 in Frankfurt. Product for the filtration industry include filter media for classes G3 to H11 for applications ranging from heating, ventilation and air condition, to automobile filtration and synthetic vacuum cleaner bags.

Synthetic Sandler pocket filter media contribute to reducing the life cycle costs of the filter from energy efficient utilization to disposal. With their low average pressure drop they lower energy consumption during their operation of the filtration plant. Progressively structured filter media contain finest fibers of less than 1µm and achieve high efficiencies and high dust holding capacity. Special product lines are equipped with an integrated pre-filter which prolongs the operating life of the filter. Latest developments in this segment combine cost and energy efficiency with long lasting filtration performance. These nonwovens can fulfill the requirements of future testing standards. Pleatable Sandler nonwovens address the issue of decreasing installation space in industrial as well as household applications. And simultaneously increasing demands on the filter’s performance. 100% polyester media combine the filtration properties of a pocket filter with the suitability of a cassette filter for small installation spaces.

Traditionally, gas turbines have been used in the power and oil and gas industry, often in remote areas, where the main objective has been to protect the turbine from injection of larger particles, which could cause erosion and wear. With the increasing demand of power, gas turbines are increasingly being used as a local power source in combined heat and power (CHP) and combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants in cities.

The urban environment exposes the gas turbine to pollutions and particles which is much more challenging to remove. Cars, trucks and other combustion or industrial processes generate a high concentration of small sub-micron hydro carbon particles which, if not removed, will change the shape of the rotating and stationary vanes of the compressor.

If not removed by the inlet air filtration system, the particle injection will force the operator to frequently water wash the compressor section either by temporal on-line washing or more efficiently during shut-down.

Gas turbine inlet filter systems have during the past 10-20 years typically been designed with G4 pre-filtration and F7-9 (EN 779) final stage efficiency in static systems. This has provided an acceptable engine protection for many installations, but with an increasing use of gas turbines in urban environments engine degradation is sometimes rapid and water wash cycles is often reduced to few hundred hours.

Consequently, what is needed is better efficiency in removing small sub-micron particles, which mean minimum F9 efficiency or preferably stepping up to the EPA class range from E10 to E12 (EN 1822), which has a dramatic effect on engine fouling. For example, by going from the typical F8 grade to E12, penetration of 0.4 micron particles is reduced from typically 30 per cent for a F8 filter to less than 0.5per cent in a E12 filter. This is a huge improvement which cuts fouling dramatically.

With E12 efficiency we have taken the step into the "clean-room" world which gives operation periods of 2-3 years between shutdowns. But even taking the step to go from the F8/9 'standard' to the today very common E10 is a huge improvement for the operator.

Higher efficiency, however, also requires a matching pre-filtration and a filter house that makes sure no air is by-passed in flanges, gaskets etc. The previous pre-filter standard of G4 is not adequate protection for an E-class filter, so depending on final efficiency class, pre-filtration of F6 to F9 will be required to make sure pressure drop development and maintenance cycles are keeps at matching levels.

Source: Peter Sandberg, CEO, Camfil Farr Power Systems, reported in Power Engineer

H&V is introducing a new media for use in NIOSH P100 disposable and elastomeric respirators. To meet this classification, the respirator and its media must have an efficiency of 99.97% when challenged against DOP oil particles at a flow rate of 85 liters per minute. The respirator must maintain this minimum efficiency and show no further decrease in efficiency after loading with 200 mg of DOP aerosol. H&V’s P100 media is a composite of meltblown media and their patented, proprietary Technostat® Plus media. This composite material has been designed to provide an efficiency that meets the P100 classification at low air resistance while providing wearer comfort. The media can be molded or folded into a disposable respirator or can be die-cut for use in elastomeric respirator cartridges. It provides shape and body allowing it to be formed into a respirator without the addition of nonwoven or spunbond layers that are often used in respirator manufacture.

Air Innovations has introduced a patented, ventilating room air purifier that uses fresh, outside air to reduce indoor air pollutants. HEPAiRx® quickly and effectively dilutes, filters and reduces the indoor pollutants that are often cited as causes of asthma, respiratory irritations and allergic reactions. HEPAiRx is made in America by Air Innovations, Inc., which is selling it direct from a newly launched website, http://www.hepairx.com.

HEPAiRx is a conveniently window-mounted unit with these unique features:

--High-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtration--to prevent contaminants from entering a room;

--Air conditioning--to help dehumidify and reduce the likelihood of mold growth in a room;

--Energy recovery ventilation--to bring fresh, outside air into a room; and,

--Heating--to isolate the room from the rest of the home, thereby preventing contamination from other rooms, like the kitchen and bath, from entering.

The company claims there is no other air purification system on the market quite like HEPAiRx, which is most effective in single-room settings, such as bedrooms, where people spend large amounts of time. In addition, the unit's soothing "white noise" often blocks sounds from outside or inside the house, which may help occupants sleep better.

HEPAiRx research results have been published in two peer-reviewed journals and have been presented at several international indoor air quality technical conferences. The studies show that, within minutes, the unit removes and reduces the kinds of pollutants that trigger respiratory irritations that can exacerbate the symptoms of asthma.

The product, which retails for $3,595, may be reimbursable under customers' flexible spending and health savings accounts with a doctor's prescription.

UV Flu Technologies, Inc. announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Rx Air Industries, LLC, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, has introduced the RX-6500, an air filtration system specifically designed for Homeland Security applications.

The RX6500 features include an airflow of 2,500cfm, ozone free germicidal UV, micro-processor with data port for remote monitoring and alarm codes, and HEPA filtration systems that removes 99.97% of contaminants greater than 0.3 microns. The unit also has a chemical adsorption filtration pack specifically designed for military applications, providing protection against cyanogens chloride (CK), Sarin (GB), hydrogen cyanide (AC), and industrial gases such as chlorine. The unit can also create and maintain an isolation environment in a shelter up to 2,000 sq. feet, such as a mobile hospital or command center, up to required standards as proposed by the CDC.

RxAir (www.rxair.com) is a manufacturer of air purification equipment designed for applications within the medical and hospitality marketplace, and also includes products geared for specialized industrial applications, such as emergency preparedness. The RX6500 was one of three products included in the acquisition of the Company by UV Flu Technologies, but was never previously marketed due to capital constraints. The Company's two main products, the RX3000, which is the Company's best seller, provides air purification coverage in spaces up to 2000 sq. ft, while the RX4500, also known as the "Smoke Handler," is the preferred choice of hospitality establishments nationwide, and in a system of 2 units can protect spaces of up to 20,000 sq. feet, and can be connected to existing ductwork. Both units can remove more than 99.97% of airborne contaminants and pathogens greater than 0.3 micrometers in size, and are designed with exterior cabinetry able to match any décor.

"The RX6500 not only opens up huge new markets to us, it illustrates our capability to design, or alter our products for almost any application involving air purification," said Jack Lennon, President of UV Flu Technologies. "Given that RxAir products are manufactured here in the United States, we are taking steps to become eligible for bidding on military, as well as other government contracts. With all of the unrest in the World today, having a product that can clear a space up to 2,000 sq. ft, from poisonous or toxic gasses within minutes is an important tool to keep our citizens safe, whether from a terrorist threat, pandemic, or an industrial accident. Government or military buildings, schools, control rooms or hospitals are all potential markets for our products. Through continuous testing and product improvement, we plan to become recognized innovators in this multi-billion dollar air quality sector."

Web site:  www.mcilvainecompany.com