We are pleased to announce that the next generation of the MAST Center will be initiated as a partnership between NJIT and CU. Our 5-year award from the National Science Foundation and new name became effective as of July 15, 2010. We will now operate as the Membrane Science, Engineering and Technology Center, but we will retain the MAST acronym. This exciting development provides the Center with a unique opportunity to build upon a record of significant accomplishment during our 19 years of participation in the NSF I/UCRC program.

The Membrane Science, Engineering and Technology Center will be developing a completely new website to match the expanded program of our new Center! We will continue to provide essential updates on the current site until the new one is ready--we appreciate your patience!

Fall 2010 MAST Center IAB Meeting

Our first IAB meeting as the new Membrane Science, Engineering and Technology Center will be held at the University of Colorado on October 31-November 2, 2010. A tentative agenda, lodging information, driving directions, and information for on-line registration for the Fall 2010 IAB Meeting will be provided to sponsors, faculty and students in September 2010. We encourage all IAB members to invite other colleagues from their organizations to join us. Please see our Meetings Page for more details.

NAMS 2010 Meeting

The NAMS-ICIM 2010 Meeting was held in Washington, DC, from July 17-22. The meeting was jointly hosted by the University of Colorado MAST Center and Ohio State University (OSU). Tony Allegrezza and Alan Greenberg were the meeting chairs, and Rich Noble served as the technical program chair.

Over 500 attendees enjoyed the beautiful Mandarin Oriental hotel while learning about the latest advances in membrane science and engineering. The four weekend Workshops preceding the conference were very well attended, and the traditional Sunday evening welcome reception kicked off a week packed with all things membrane. The conference theme, "Membranes: Enabling a Sustainable Future," was highlighted with two excellent plenary lectures: the first by Herve Buisson from Veolia Water on Monday morning focused on water and the second by Johanna Wellington from GE Research on Wednesday morning addressed sustainable energy. NAMS-ICIM 2010 featured 40 sessions with 190 presentations and required two evenings of posters to accommodate the almost 300 submissions.

The conference theme attracted a large number of presentations and posters in diverse areas. Two sessions on the state-of-the-art and future directions in water treatment and gas separation membranes provided a strong start for the research presentations. The sessions directed to sustainability included three on water treatment, two on membrane fouling, and three on gas separation with CO2 abatement as a major focus. Sessions on fuel cells and batteries and on hydrogen recovery added to the emphasis on sustainability. The research presented in these sessions, as well as other work described during NAMS-ICIM 2010 places membrane science in the midst of sustainability efforts.

This conference represented a new direction as the North American Membrane Society partnered with the International Conferences on Inorganic Membranes for the first-ever joint conference. ICIM produced sessions on inorganic membranes as well as input for many other sessions, particularly those on multifunctional, mixed-matrix and high temperature membranes as well as membrane reactors. ICIM researchers provided new and important contributions to the annual conference.

The MAST Center wishes to acknowledge Center sponsors whose generous support helped to make NAMS-ICIM 2010 such a success: Millipore Corporation (now EMD Millipore), Pall Corporation, W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc., and the National Science Foundation.