2001 AFS Chair - Ray Collins

As he approached the completion of his doctoral dissertation in chemical engineering and began to consider a career technical specialty, Ray Collins sought a field that was far removed from filtration. He had just finished an extensive experimental validation of a new analysis of cake filtration with Professor Max Willis, and he seized the opportunity to diversify, joining the Process Separations group of The Dow Chemical Co. in Midland, MI.

His responsibilities included liquid-liquid extraction and crystallization. After three years in this large corporate R&D organization, which bills time by internal recharge and already had a famous senior research fellow who specialized in these subjects, Ray began to field requests from Dow personnel at various levels for assistance with solid-liquid separations.

The huge response fueled the growth of a full-service laboratory and a consulting service where none had existed. The core group in Midland typically investigates more than 20 different applications each year and has capability for research and development at both lab and pilot scale for all major forms of solid-liquid separation.

The resulting work has led to several awards from Dow for technical innovation, waste reduction and cost savings. Ray has published numerous internal reports and has taught short courses in membrane filtration and filtration design principles. He has two patents pending and is a frequent presenter at conferences of the AFS Society and the AIChE.

Ray led the AFS Society through a difficult period of transition. Its previous secretary and assistant had resigned at the end of 2000, and new, day-to-day administration had to be secured on short notice. A period of negative cash flow was reversed, and debts from the 2000 conference in Tampa were met by holding a successful topical conference later that year.

AFS exited 2001 in the black with adequate cash reserves and a positive cash flow. Key appointments to committees, Tad Jarosczyk in By-Laws and Wu Chen in Education, along with Faith Levine as Treasurer reformed and rejuvenated each of those areas. Ray chaired the technical program at the 2002 conference in Galveston, and recruited our current executive manager, Suzanne Sower, to organize presenters at that conference where her skills were discovered. Ray assumed leadership of the Publications Committee from Shiao Chiang in 2004 and has worked with our journal editor, George Chase, to provide members with the quarterly periodical Filtration.

Before his 18 years at The Dow Chemical Co. and graduate studies, Ray served as an officer in the US Air Force during the late Vietnam era, leading large squadrons engaged in aircraft maintenance. He continued in a similar part-time role with the Air Force Reserve in Ohio and reached the grade of lieutenant colonel before retiring in 1992. He and his wife, Nancy, have two daughters, and their latest hobby is renovating a cabin on a small lake in northern Michigan.

Why did you join the AFS and filtration industry?

I first became involved with filtration at The University of Akron because I was pursuing a degree in chemical engineering and needed a dissertation topic with funding to support my wife and oldest daughter. Professor Willis gratefully extended that opportunity. I continued my involvement because of the technical challenge of multiphase separations and the broad opportunities for contributions. Solid-liquid separations are an outstanding area upon which to build a technical career.

I started attending AFS events on encouragement from George Chase and have continued my participation because I firmly believe in the need for a professional forum to exchange general information concerning technologies and network with fellow practitioners.

What changes (technology, economic, governmental, environmental etc) have had the most impact on the filtration industry?

Increasingly stringent and well justified regulations on environmental emissions have admittedly had a huge impact over three decades in stimulating new requirements and responses in the process industries. With the exception of membranes, improved materials, and possibly nanoparticles, the technology of physical separations has not changed its fundamental elements for several decades.

However, global economic competition is a factor which has only recently been appreciated and will challenge the separations industry. While technical performance is pushed to higher standards, there is strong, growing pressure to reduce costs. Put simply, solid-liquid separations have to perform far better now than 10 years ago yet add no significant expense.

This applies across the board: to separations essential to product or environmental quality alike. Such tension should promote technical innovation, but in my view, economic factors, which are not as “simple” to resolve as environmental standards, are permanently reshaping the separations industry.

Where do you see the filtration industry in 5-10 years?

The challenges will be different between developed and developing economies. Assuming that proper environmental safeguards are practiced in all regions, market demand and size will grow strongly for different reasons in economies at various stages of development. The spectrum of prominent applications (e.g. consumer versus industrial markets) will change depending on the state of development.

However, developed economies will find it difficult to compete in the manufacture of products for solid-liquid separations unless breakthroughs in technology provide sufficient advantage to compensate for their inherently higher costs. Apart from the most sophisticated products, I would expect manufacturing for the filtration industry to move largely to developing economies.

Developed economies are still better positioned to achieve technical breakthroughs, and the tension to create truly novel solutions for unmet needs should drive fundamental changes in technology at 10 years and beyond.