The American Filtration and Separations Society is committed to professional education as one of our primary missions. Even when gathering physically is on hold for the foreseeable future, we are forging ahead with online learning for several of our hallmark courses. For filtration professionals among the millions of people working from home, we present these valuable opportunities to expand your knowledge.

During the week of April 20, AFS will present the following courses:

Tuesday, April 21, 8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. central time: Intro to Solids/Liquids I – Principles
Tuesday, April 21, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. central time: Meltblown and Nanofiber Technologies
Friday, April 24, 8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. central time: Intro to Solids/Liquids II – Equipment, Operation and Testing

Introduction to Solid/Liquid Separation I and II

Introduction to Solid/Liquid Separation I and II introduce the basics of solid/liquid separation from an industrial application perspective. Practical information and examples will be used to illustrate fundamentals. These courses are designed for people who are new to the filtration industry either in technical, sales or business functions, as well as experienced practitioners who need a better understanding of correlating fundamentals to practical applications. To accommodate a wide spectrum of solids/liquid separation technology and to cater to audience interests, this material is presented as two courses. Each course can be taken independently, but taking both is recommended.

Course I will present the simple underlining principles of key solid/liquid separation technologies, types of liquid filters and selection criteria. Technologies to improve filtration and separation such as filter aid, coagulation and flocculation are also part of the curriculum.

Course II will cover key types of solid/liquid separation equipment, including all types of filters, gravity settlers and centrifugal separators. Basic operation principles, application guidelines and key testing and evaluation methods will be presented.

Outline (Course I)

• Introduction
• Particles and Liquid Properties
• Principles of Solid/Liquid Separation
• Liquid Filtration Media
• Pretreatment (Filter Aids, Coagulation & Flocculation)

Outline (Course II) 

• Straining Equipment
• Cake Filtration Equipment
• Depth Filtration Equipment
• Membrane Filtration Equipment
• Gravity Settling Equipment
• Centrifugal Separation Equipment

Instructors for the Introduction to Solid/Liquid Separation courses are Dr. Wu Chen, Dr. Wenping Li, Chris Wallace and Dr. Lin Zhao.

Dr. Chen is a Principal Research Scientist at Dow. He has over 30 years of industrial experience in solid/liquid and air/gas separation, in both technologies and filtration markets. He is also experienced in project management, process design, bio-separation and membrane processes. He has been teaching this course in numerous organizations for over 20 years. He is currently the chair of the AFS Education Committee and the coordinator of AFS short courses. He has served as AFS Chair, on the Board of Directors, as a conference chair, as a local chapter officer and on various committees in the past. His was awarded the AFS Frank Tiller Award in 2002, the AFS Well Shoemaker Award in 2005 and the Fellow Member Award in 2010.

Dr. Li is the R&D Director of Agrilectric Research Company and is in charge of product development and application, product quality and filtration lab. management. She has 20 years of practical industrial filtration experience. Before joining Agrilectric, she worked with the father of modern filtration theory, Professor Frank M. Tiller at the University of Houston, from which she built in-depth understanding of fundamentals in filtration. She has two patents, over 40 publications, including contributions to filtration sections in Perry’s Chemical Engineers’ Handbook and Albright Chemical Engineering Handbook.

Wenping served as the AFS Chair in 2012. She has also served as an AFS Southwest Chapter officer and AFS Conferences co-chair and moderator. She is currently serving on the AFS Board of Directors and the AFS Scientific Committee, and has chaired the AFS Student Poster Competition for over five years.

Chris Wallace is the Vice President of Technology for Filtration Technology Corporation (FTC) in Houston, TX. Since he joined FTC in 2003, he has been involved in production engineering, application engineering, research and development, and technical sales of filtration and separation products for liquid/solid, gas/solid, liquid/liquid, and gas/liquid applications. He holds a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Tulane University. Chris is actively involved in AFS leadership and has served on the Board of Directors since 2016. He was AFS Chair from 2014 to 2015 and President of the Southwest Chapter from 2010 to 2012. He is currently a member of the Corporate Sponsors Committee and on the advisory committee for the Southwest Chapter.

Dr. Lin Zhao is an Associate Research Scientist at Dow. His work at Dow focuses on solid/liquid separation with five years of practical industrial experience from lab evaluation and filter design to production scale implementation and trouble shooting. He also has experience in major site startup and operation. Before joining Dow, he obtained his Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering at the Ohio State University in Professor Winston Ho’s research group with a focus on developing advanced membranes for water desalination and gas separation. Lin joined AFS in 2015 and has been actively involved since. He currently serves on the AFS Publication Committee, the AFS Education Committee and the AFS Board of Directors.

Meltblown and Nanofiber Technologies

The objective of the Meltblown and Nanofiber Technologies course is to provide an in-depth understanding of modern meltblown and nanofiber technologies, and how they are used in filtration, especially as the core component in protective facemasks currently in high demand for combatting coronavirus disease, COVID-19.The unmet needs, new developments and trends for future development also will be discussed.

Course Outline 

• Introduction
• Meltblown process and web characteristics
  • History and key players
  • Fundamentals in meltblown process design
  • Process control variables and web characteristics
• Meltblown advantages for filtration and facemasks
  • Uniqueness of meltblown webs
  • Irreplaceable position in filtration
• Electret meltblown PP and its use in filtration
  • Electrostatic charging techniques
  • Charge decay and durability
• Nanotechnology and emerging nanofiber applications
  • Nanotechnology and nanofibers
  • Enhanced mechanical filtration performance
• Methods to produce nanofibers
  • Electrospinning
  • Meltblowing
  • Forcespinning
  • Electroblown
  • Fiber splitting
  • Shear spinning
  • Solution blowing
  • Fibrillation
• New developments and trends for future development
  • Advanced hybrid nonwoven composites
  • Continuous sustainable development

The instructor for the Meltblown and Nanofiber Technologies Course will be Dr. Christine Sun.

Dr. Sun is a globally renowned expert and leader in the filtration Industry. She served as Chair of AFS in 2016-2017 and received the AFS Fellow Award in 2019.

With over 30 years of experience in both academia and industry, Dr. Sun has both broad and in-depth knowledge of filtration and separation, as well as extensive and hands-on experience in product development. She finished her Ph.D. from Tsinghua University (Beijing) on the meltblown process in 1995, then worked for the University of Tennessee to continue her research on meltblown, nanofiber and nonwovens as a research professor until 2004. Dr. Sun was with Freudenberg Filtration Technologies as R&D manager from 2004 to 2011, and then joined Donaldson as Technology Director from 2011-2013. She has developed a collection of training courses that are presented at AFS, WFC 13 and other organizations.

She works passionately with various organizations, societies and industrial and academic professionals worldwide to support the growth of the global filtration industry and advance the sciences and technologies of filtration and separation processes for a clean, healthy and sustainable world. She has over 100 technical publications and multiple patents and has been actively involved in ASHRAE/ISO/SAE/NFPA filter test standard development for 15 years. Dr. Sun also serves as an editorial board member for Textile Research Journal and Journal of Industrial Textiles.

 Fees are $495 for members/$595 for non-members for the first course, and $395 for members/$495 for non-members for each subsequent course taken in 2020. Upon completion, attendees will receive a certificate of completion and earn 0.4 CEU credits per course.