InnoWa Membrane specializes in the development, application and manufacturing of high-performance filter systems based on membrane technology. The company emerged from the former EBG GmbH.

InnoWa Membrane will operate under the name Mahle InnoWa GmbH, which will be headquartered in Stuttgart.

InnoWa Membrane, a technology leader, manufactures hollow fiber membranes for ultrafiltration.

Ultrafiltration is used for the treatment of drinking water from the rivers, surface waters, or springs, while taking preliminary steps in seawater desalination. The technology allows even minuscule particles such as germs, viruses, and bacteria to be filtered and opens up additional areas of applications in home and building services engineering.

With its industrial filtration division, Mahle Industry is an established manufacturer of filtration solutions for a broad spectrum of industrial applications.

“By acquiring InnoWa Membrane, we are opening up new areas of applications for our company in the field of filtration, such as the important segment of water treatment,” said Dr Michael Matros, corporate executive vice-president and general manager of Mahle Industry.

“This acquisition strengthens our core markets of food & beverages, power generation, and general industrial applications,” added Matros.

Mahle Industry enjoys a globally active sales network with an excellent reputation. The integration of InnoWa Membrane into the industrial filtration division creates a new business opportunity for Mahle Industry to focus on water treatment.

The Mahle Group is one of the 30 largest companies in the automotive supply industry worldwide.

With its two business units – engine systems & components and filtration & engine peripherals, Mahle ranks among the top three systems suppliers worldwide for piston systems, cylinder components, as well as valve train, air management, and liquid management systems.

The industry business unit coordinates industrial activities of Mahle Group, which includes the areas of large engines, industrial filtration, as well as cooling and air-conditioning systems.

The aftermarket business unit serves the independent spare parts market with Mahle products in OE quality.

Water purification, seawater desalination, gas separations, and chemical filtrations could get a boost from two new carbon-based ultrathin membranes with unique properties: One selectively filters water, and the other selectively filters organic solvents, according to two reports in Science.

Wastewater treatment includes physical, chemical, and biological processes that remove pollutants and disease-causing pathogens from wastewater. Each step of wastewater treatment removes pollutants and impurities. The first step of the process at the Margaretville Wastewater Treatment Plant is preliminary treatment, where a series of grates called bar screens remove solid objects—such as rags and household debris found in wastewater. Pumps then raise the wastewater to a series of settling tanks for primary treatment, another physical process in which the flow is reduced from a speed of two feet per second to roughly one foot per minute to allow heavy waste to settle to the bottom and lighter waste to rise to the top. Slow-moving bars skim the waste from the top and bottom. Suspended material, which neither sinks nor floats, moves to another series of tanks for secondary treatment, also known as the suspended growth process. Much like bacteria breaks down food during digestion in a human body, in this process good bacteria consume the suspended material in an oxygen-rich environment. The bacteria are mixed with chemical coagulants so small fine particles and phosphorus that can damage the reservoirs form sticky heavy particles, and, as they become heavier, settle to the bottom of another battery of tanks where they are then removed. The remaining flow first goes through fine mixed media filtration, and then through microfiltration. Microfiltration is an advanced treatment process required on all wastewater treatment plants in the watershed in which treated wastewater passes through a membrane filter that removes remaining pathogens and contaminants. The remaining flow is further disinfected with ultraviolet light before release into the East Branch of the Delaware River, which flows into the Pepacton Reservoir. The project was required by the State Department of Environmental Conservation to address inflow and infiltration issues caused during local storm events and snow melts.

In February, safety improvements were made at the Margaretville Wastewater Treatment Plant and included installation of propane shut-off systems and fire and gas detection alarm systems, which help better protect workers at the plant and assist local fire and rescue responders.

Watershed protection is considered the best way of maintaining drinking water quality over the long term. New York City’s program, one of the most comprehensive in the world, has been so successful at protecting the integrity of its water supply that the Environmental Protection Agency awarded the City a 10-year Filtration Avoidance Determination in 2007. Since 1997, the City has invested more than $1.5 billion in watershed protection programs, including nearly $125 million to construct new wastewater infrastructure in communities with concentrated areas of substandard septic systems. Upgrading wastewater treatment facilities in the watershed to include microfiltration, among other technologies, has also been a key component in this continued effort to reduce or eliminate the levels of contaminants and pathogens discharged in the watershed. The success of these and other programs is a main reason why New York City remains one of only five large cities in the country that is not required to filter the majority of its drinking water.

There are two primary types of protein blotting membranes used in Western blotting applications:  Nitrocellulose and PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride). While both membrane types are suitable for colorimetric and chemiluminescent detection, their high autofluorescence and lower signal-to-background ratios are not suitable for fluorescent detection.

Immun-Blot LF PVDF membranes are a low fluorescent alternative specifically designed for fluorescent immunoblotting and detection in the visible light (Red/Green/Blue) spectrum. Immun-Blot LF PVDF membranes produce highly sensitive and quantitative results due to superior signal-to-background ratios, which are higher than low fluorescence membrane solutions (Bulletin 6116) and are three times higher than nitrocellulose and conventional PVDF.

• Low autofluorescence and high signal-to-background ratio — produces a stronger signal, more accurate protein quantitation, and higher quality images
• Superior protein retention — offers binding capacity of 300 µg/cm2 and improves the ability to capture more proteins, especially low-abundance proteins
• Precut membrane and filter paper sets — saves time and eliminates excessive membrane handling and potential contamination

Immun-Blot LF PVDF membranes are compatible with any imager possessing visible RGB excitation channels, including Bio-Rad’s new ChemiDoc MP imager, which allows researchers to visualize proteins at every stage of their blotting experiment when paired with Bio-Rad’s proprietary Stain-Free technology. The membranes are also compatible with a wide range of fluorescent labels such as DyLights, Q-Dots, and Alexa fluorophores as well as colorimetric and chemiluminescent detection methods.

If switching to CFL bulbs was a wise choice, then switching to a new generation of energy efficient air filters is a no-brainer. Consider, for example, that while the cost premium of a CFL bulb versus a traditional incandescent bulb is 8 times the price, the premium of a sustainable air filter — like the 5-Star Durafil 4V from Camfil Farr — is just 2 times the price of a less efficient filter.

Both a CFL bulb and an energy-efficient air filter more than recover their cost premium. A CFL bulb may cost 8 times more than a traditional light bulb but it lasts 10 times longer. For sustainable air filters, the equation is even more favorable, as a filter that costs twice as much as a less efficient product lasts three times longer.

Then there are the energy savings. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the annual energy savings per CFL bulb is $4.50. Meanwhile, the savings per sustainable air filter is $ 135+ (thus it takes roughly 30bCFL bulbs to achieve the energy savings of a single 5 Star air filter). How long does it take to install 30 light bulbs versus 1 air filter?

Factor that $135 savings by the 300 air filters used by the average hospital, and switching to low-energy air filters can save $ 40,500 a year in energy costs, with no capital expenses. The same hospital would have to replace almost 10,000 conventional bulbs with CFL bulbs to achieve the same savings.

Keep in mind, too, that unlike light bulbs — which contain mercury — disposing of used air filters presents no health and safety concerns. And because sustainable filters from manufacturers like Camfil Farr last far longer than more conventionally designed products, there are fewer of them to dispose of, in any event — further reducing their impact on the environment.

Hospitals, manufacturers, and other organizations have seen significant — and easily obtainable — benefits by switching to compact florescent bulbs. Moving to low-energy air filters is the logical next step: a simple, low-cost strategy to boost savings even more.

It can also mean higher costs over the long run. Low-cost air filters that degrade quickly require frequent maintenance and replacement. Those costs add up, ultimately turning the ‘bargain’ on its head. Higher-quality products, on the other hand, may cost more initially but perform better, for longer periods of time. In the end, they provide the greater return on investment — not to mention a healthier indoor environment where clean air isn’t a goal but a fact.

For a Dallas-based Fortune 500 company — a worldwide leader in the semiconductor and computer technology business — this long-term view of commercial air filters has paid off handsomely, resulting not just in clean air but significant savings.

For decades, the company had been buying filters as commodity items, favoring low-cost filters in a strategy that it thought brought it value. What it brought, however, was just the opposite. The low-cost air filters featured a traditional design, using coarse fiber media to keep dangerous particles out of the air. But coarse fiber media has one big disadvantage: It doesn’t stand up to time. Efficiency drops quickly, requiring frequent replacement. Costs, it turns out, are high after all, because so many of those ‘low-cost’ air filters are required over time.

Cutting-edge commercial air filter designs, like those pioneered by Camfil Farr, the global leader in innovative clean air solutions, take a different approach. They use advanced technologies like fine fiber media to provide optimal efficiency for maintained filter efficiency over time. They also last longer so while these air filters may cost more up front they need less frequent change-outs, resulting in lower overall costs. Indeed, total lifecycle cost (LCC) calculations predicted that the Dallas company would see savings of 37 percent over five years.

The proof, of course, is in real-world performance. So the company pitted its commodity air filters against Camfil Farr’s advanced design. Coarse fiber air filters were tested side by side with Camfil’s fine fiber media filters rated at the same efficiency. They were challenged by the same air, at the same airflow, over the same timeframe.

Testing confirmed the LCC calculations, demonstrating clearly the substantially decreased ownership costs — in this case, a savings of nearly 40 percent — that Camfil’s fine fiber air filters offer.

For the semiconductor giant, its next decision was easy: switching from its existing commercial air filters to Camfil Farr’s innovative — and cost saving — design. Indeed, three years after testing, the performance of the Camfil Farr filters still align with the LCC calculations.

These results weren’t an anomaly. Many of the biotechnology companies, hospitals, schools, and other organizations that have implemented Camfil Farr clean air solutions have also been able to cut their HVAC energy costs by up to 40 percent a year.

By looking beyond initial costs, and looking at long-term performance, the Fortune 500 company — like many other Camfil Farr customers — was able to put spend less money on air filtration, while getting cleaner air in the process. That’s not just a win for the bottom line, but for health and for comfort — and a true bargain that stands the test of time.

Camfil scooped two awards, ‘Energy Efficient Product of the Year’ – For their HVAC Low Energy Air Filter and ‘Excellence in Carbon Reduction’ – Small Company

Bill Wilkinson, Camfil Managing Director said:

“The Energy Awards are a major stamp of approval for us, this is proof that our low energy air filters help FM’s and Estates Professionals improve their sustainability whilst making substantial energy savings. We are also thrilled to get recognition for our own Carbon Reduction initiatives, we really do practice what we preach to our customers!”

The Energy Awards ceremony was held in London on 1stDecember 2011 and provided a unique coming together of the industry’s who’s who for an evening of recognition and celebration.