The American Membrane Technology Association and the American Water Works Association recently announced awardees at the 2022 Membrane Technology Conference & Exposition (MTC) in Las Vegas.

Brian Ward of the City of Fargo Water Treatment Plant in Fargo, North Dakota, was presented with this year’s Robert O. Vernon Operator of the Year Award. The award recognizes outstanding contributions by a plant operator working at a membrane filtration, desalination or water reuse facility that resulted in significant, long-term improvement in water production and/or water reuse.

The Robert W. Sokoll Joint Venture Surface Water Treatment Plant, which provides drinking water and rural farm use water for about 50,000 customers in Waxahachie, Texas, was presented with this year’s Membrane Facility of the Year Award. The award recognizes an outstanding water/wastewater facility that uses membrane technology with high efficiency in an environmentally friendly approach. 

Rodrigo A. Tackaert, senior engineer at Trussell Technologies, won the Austin F. McCormack, Jr. Award, which recognizes and honors membrane related contributions made by a young professional to the water or public health community.

“Managing and treating per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in membrane concentrates” by Emily W. Tow, Mahmut Selim Ersan, Soyoon Kum, Tae Lee, Thomas F. Speth, Christine Owen, Christopher Bellona, Mallikarjuna N. Nadagouda, Anne M. Mikelonis, Paul Westerhoff, Chandra Mysore, Val S. Frenkel, Viraj deSilva, W. Shane Walker, Andrew K. Safulko and David A. Ladner was presented with the Membrane Treatment Best Paper Award.

Additional award recipients include:

Avista Technologies, Inc., was awarded best exhibit.

“Closed Circuit High-Pressure Membrane Systems for the Separation of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances” by Andrew Safulko was awarded best paper.

“Retrofit of Hollow Fiber MBR with Submerged Ceramic Membranes for Fats, Oils and Hydrocarbon Management in Industrial Reuse Plant” by Stanton Smith and Abdurrehman Rashid was awarded best poster. 

“Flux and Antifouling Performance of Bioinspired Liquid Infused Membranes” by Rushabh Shah was awarded best student paper. 

“Urea Recovery and Fouling Mitigation of Fresh Human Urine Using Cross-flow Reverse Osmosis and Nanofiltration” by Lucas Crane was awarded best student poster. 

For more information on MTC, visit the conference’s webpage.