Osmosis Peters

The origin of thin-film-composite reverse osmosis membranes began with a newly formed research institute and one of its first employees, Peter S. Francis. North Star Research and Development Institute was formed in Minneapolis during 1963 to fill a need for a nonprofit contract research institute in the Upper Midwest. Francis was given the mission of developing the chemistry division through support, in part, by federal research contracts. At this time the Initial discoveries by Reid and Breton ( ) on the desalination capability of dense cellulose acetate membranes and by Loeb and Sourlrajan (,2) on asymmetric cellulose acetate membranes had recently been published. Francis speculated that improved membrane performance could be achieved, if the ultrathin, dense barrier layer and the porous substructure of the asymmetric... 

Taylor, JamesS., and Ed. P. Jacobs, "Reverse Osmosis and Nanofiltration," in Water Treatment Membrane Processes, Joel Mallevialle, Peter E. Odendaal, and Mark R. Wiesner, eds., McGraw-Hill Publishers, New York, New York, 1996. 

Peters, X.A., Purification of landfill leachate with reverse osmosis and nanofiltration. Desalination, 119, 289, 1998. 

The first composite reverse osmosis membrane reported in the technical literature was developed by Peter Francis of North Star Research Institute in 1964 (4). This membrane was formed by float-casting an ultrathin film of cellulose acetate (CA) upon a water surface, removing the membrane from the water surface by lamination onto a pre-formed microporous support film and drying to bond the membrane to the support. This float-casting procedure has since been described in the technical literature for both flat sheet and tubular membranes ( 5, 6, T). 

Th.A. Peters, Purification of landfill leachate with reverse osmosis and D-T module, in A. Caetano (Ed.), Membrane Technology Applications to Industrial Wastewater Treatment, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, MA, 1995, p. 175. 

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