Organic fibres discussed

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Organic fibres Osmonics discussed encouraged by o r t is now available from sales performance ASRIr e pConsulting of Menlo Park, US-based Osmonics Inc says that it is encouraged by its first-half sales performance. According to the company, it reflects renewed organic growth as well as US$6.1 million in sales at its Kent, Washington facility, which was acquired during July 1999. Internal growth amounted to $5.4 million for the period. This growth helped replace $2.8 million in firsthalf sales for 1999 from discontinued product lines at the company's former Rockland, Massachusetts and Upland facilities in California, which have since been closed. The company reported sales of $49.4 million for the second quarter ended 30 June 2000. This represents an increase of 6.3% on sales of $46.5 million which it posted for the second quarter of 1999. Net income for the quarter was $1.8 million, compared with $2.1 million for the previous year. Unfortunately, the untimely bankruptcy filing by Safety-Kleen (SK) slowed sales m o m e n t u m for the second quarter of 2000, says Osmonics. During 1999, SK purchased $4.9 million of the company's WasteWizard product, and it expected to nearly double this in 2000. However, sales during 2000 have only reached $2.8 million after six months, and SK business as a percentage of total sales has declined from 4.2% in the first quarter to 1.3% in the second quarter. Osmonics says that all three of its business segments experienced improvements in revenue during the second quarter of 2000, compared with the second quarter of 1999. In particular, the Process Water segment posted good results, showing a 14.6% increase in sales for the second quarter of 2000, compared with the same period last year. For m o r e i n f o r m a t i o n , contact: Osmonics Inc, 5951 Clearwater Drive, Minnetonka, MN 55343-8995, USA. Tel: +1 612 933 2277, Fax: +1 612 933 0141.

California which discusses the role of specialty organic fibres. According to the company, the relatively new technologies with which these materials are associated appear to offer good prospects for high-volume commercial use. Specific applications include fibreoptics and hollow fibres. Hollow fibres are polymeric continuous filament fibres whose core or centre is either hollow, or exceptionally porous with the polymer remaining in the core of the fibre but connected in an irregular lattice-like arrangement. Since the 1960s, these membranes have been produced commercially for use in reverse osmosis systems, ultrafiltration, micro filtration and gas separation. They are also being developed for cell culture applications, as an integrated substrate-filtration system. SRI Consulting says that within the membrane separation systems industry, hollow fibres are used in specialised niche markets, where they compete with membranes made from plastic films and flat sheets which are often made from the same resins that are used to make the hollow fibres. Worldwide, the largest industrial use of reverse osmosis membranes is desalination of sea water and brackish water, of which approximately 60%, estimates the company, is processed using hollow-fibre modules. Hollow-fibre membranes are also used for the separation of gases. They have become successful in nitrogen separation markets where conventional delivery is not feasible, such as nitrogen delivery for ship blanketing and offshore oil platforms. They are also used in the separation of C O 2 from methane, and of hydrogen from a variety of hydrogen-containing streams from ammonia purge gas. Ultrafiltration technology now makes use of hollow fibres, primarily for industrial waste effluent and waste-water treatment, such as oil-water separations, polyvinyl alcohol recovery in sizing operations in the textile industry,

and waste-effluent treatment in the paper coating industry. Hollow fibres are also used for pharmaceutical and biotechnology applications, for example in the concentration of bacteria and viruses, and continuous fermentation processes. In micro filtration systems they are mainly found in biomedical applications (predominantly blood dialysis), although they are now being used to some extent in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, chemistry, food processing, environmental control and electronics manufacturing, says the company. For m o r e i n f o r m a t i o n , contact: SRI Consulting, Chemical Economics Handbook Program, 333 Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025-3477, USA. Tel: +1 650 8593900, Fax: +1 650 859 2182.

Ionics' revenues rise, but net income falls Watertown, Massachusetts-based Ionics Inc says that its revenues for the quarter ended 30 June 2000 reached US$102.8 million. This represents an increase of about 22%, compared with revenues of $84.6 million posted for the second quarter of 1999. Net income of $4.2 million dropped 17.4% from $5.1 million. For the first half of 2000, revenues of $205.6 million were 19.5% higher than the first six months of 1999, while net income of $7.8 million declined by roughly 20%. Backlog at the end of the quarter ended 30 June 2000 was a record $281.3 million, up by about 49% over the backlog a year earlier of $188.6 million. Bookings for the quarter totalled $110 million, which represents the fourth consecutive quarter of bookings over US$100 million. The company believes that the momentum which has been created by strong bookings over the past year, and the recent signing of membrane supply arrangements with Toray and Norit, will help to ease the recent pressure on gross margins. Gross margins in the second quarter of fiscal 2000

Membrane Technology No. 125