About Us
Clean Membranes is a rising water treatment equipment company that is focused on applying ultrafiltration membrane technology to help address the world-wide problems of water conservation, treatment and reuse; a company built around people with decades of relevant industry experience; a company that leverages partnerships in technical innovation and manufacturing.
We are currently responding to the water treatment challenges of a range of markets, including industrial process water generation, wastewater treatment for reuse, and drinking water production for communities of all sizes. We are also working to address the problem of Legionella in water distribution systems for hospitals, nursing facilities and schools. Our mission is to facilitate water treatment solutions wherever ultrafiltration technology can make a difference.
Strategic Partnerships
Clean Membranes has established a distribution and product development partnership with a prominent European commercial membrane manufacturer, Polymem, located near Toulouse, France, to bring their highly advanced membrane technology to the industrial and commercial water treatment markets in the US and Canada. Polymem is recognized for its technical expertise and product innovation, as well as its extensive expertise in high quality membrane manufacturing.
LANXESS’ Liquid Purification Technologies business unit—operating in the United States as LANXESS Sybron Chemicals—enables customers in a wide variety of industries to meet their water purification challenges with a broad portfolio of ion exchange resins, reverse osmosis membranes and other specialized technologies and services. LANXESS has recently added Polymem’s ultrafiltration (UF) membrane technology to its water treatment product portfolio through a Cooperation Agreement with Polymem, and has signed an Agency Agreement with Clean Membranes to market Clean Membranes’ ultrafiltration membrane systems, which incorporate Polymem’s membrane modules, in the United States and Canada.
Commercializing Innovation
Clean Membranes’ commitment to bringing innovative technology to the North America water treatment market currently focuses on the commercialization of Neophil™ PVDF ultrafiltration membranes, the product of a collaboration between the material science company, Arkema, and the membrane manufacturer, Polymem. Neophil PVDF is the first major advance in PVDF membrane technology in 20 years. Neophil incorporates durable hydrophilicity and robust performance into commercial membranes that resist fouling, require less cleaning, and save energy. With Neophil PVDF, Clean Membranes is positioned to offer the newest generation of hollow fiber membranes to the North America market that have the characteristics essential for addressing the growing demand for cost-effective water treatment technology.
What initially motivated the founders of Clean Membranes was the commercial potential of an MIT discovery- a new hydrophilic polymer, PAN-g-PEO (or PgP), that, when made into ultrafiltration membrane fibers and applied to water treatment, would resist fouling and operate for long periods of time without requiring the use of cleaning chemicals. Clean Membranes was granted an exclusive commercial license to this innovative membrane technology for water treatment, and is working to address a range of pressing industrial water treatment needs, especially those associated with the treatment of oily wastewater.
System Design
For both standard and custom systems, a critical capability is system design and integration. Clean Membranes and its partner companies strive to design systems that work efficiently, perform reliably and withstand the rigors of their environment. The operational demands for all of these systems may be different, but they share the design objectives of easy operation, durable performance, and value to the customer.
Manufacturing
For large scale membrane manufacturing and membrane module assembly, we have partnered with Polymem, a major membrane manufacturer with decades of experience and excellent quality control capabilities.
To supplement our in-house treatment system design capabilities, we have partnered with engineering and manufacturing firms in the US to design the most reliable and cost-effective systems, based upon our own knowledge and understanding of the treatment process. Our goal is the manufacture of high-quality, cost-effective systems incorporating the best available membrane technology to reliably meet our customers’ needs.