Brian Butters
President & CEO
Purifics

Brian Butters is a Professional Engineer with a BaSc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from Western University. Brian is President and founded Purifics in 1993. The company holds 27 patents and patents pending for water purification in Advanced Ceramic Filtration & Oxidation and spends 15% of its revenue on research & development without federal or provincial support. Purifics’ technology advantage allows it to design and build Complete Water Purification plants for municipal and industrial applications, with environmental and economic advantage. Most of these plants are chemical free and do not generate waste.


Differentiating Between Different Ceramic Membranes & Processes: Duty, Flux, Pre-treatment, Fouling, Durability, Cost Structure and Application

This presentation will address the development of ceramic membranes and processes to achieve durability, functionality and cost structure over several generations of technology. The paper will focus on advancements in sustained duty, flux and elimination of most pre-treatment requirements from commercial installations. This will demonstrate how a properly designed and developed ceramic membrane process has a lower cost structure than polymeric membrane systems. Cost structure will be addressed across pretreatment, foot print, energy, complexity reduction and durability.

The balance of the presentation will then look at ceramic membrane systems as not just a filter but on their full capability; for example their broader ability to coagulate, precipitate or oxidize and eliminate pretreatments and chemicals. This will include addressing methods to prevent fouling and why some ceramic membrane systems do not suffer from irreversible fouling or failure and why others do. Attention will also be drawn to pore size characterization.