Water Planet Engineering

WPE Founder and Engineer Come to the Aid of Fijian Villages

admin — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:09:48 +0000

Professor Eric M.V. Hoek and Dr. Gil Hurwitz will lead a team of UCLA doctoral students to 9 remote villages in Fiji to assess and design safe water and sanitation plans effecting 8000 people and dozens of schools. The team will engage village leaders in designing systems to meet new guidelines set forth by the Fijian Ministry of Works and Ministry of Health in 2012. The baseline assessments will produce the necessary technical information needed as the starting point for developing these plans and to assess the priorities for future projects.In addition, volunteers will be teaching villagers how to perform tests to detect bacteria in their drinking water using simple gel pack kits.

The project’s main goal is to improve the public and environmental health by providing clean safe water in rural Fiji. In addition to improve public and environmental health through proper wastewater treatment and disposal, and to provide knowledge about sanitation issues and training on proper sanitation construction, operation, and maintenance.

Help support the effort at the following crowd funding site: http://startsomegood.com/venture/rural_water_and_sanitation_assessment_program/campaigns/show/help_students_engineer_clean_water_for_fiji

Water Planet Engineering Receives award ofDistinction for Technology Innovation of the Yearat the Global Water Awards

admin — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 01:17:31 +0000

Lee Portillo of WPE (left) with former Mexican President Vincente Fox (right)

Water Planet Engineering (WPE) is developing a new class of “polymeric-ceramic” membrane materials originally developed at UCLA under the trade name a PolyCera™. The commercial membrane product will offer the low cost and high packing density associated with conventional polymeric technologies, but will be able to compete in more challenging separations traditionally limited to ceramic membranes. WPE is closing on a $5M round of funding to accelerate the commercialization of its initial product offering.

PolyCera™ membranes are polymeric membranes that exhibit properties commonly associated with ceramic membranes. The membranes are super-hydrophilic and super-oleophobic, which improves fouling resistance; they also can tolerate extreme acid, base and high temperature conditions, which enables their use in challenging separations and makes cleaning easier. The water permeability and molecular weight cutoff can be tuned within the MF to NF range suggesting a number of differentiated products will be developed.

PolyCera™ membrane products and systems will initially be offered to the MBR, oilfield and produced water markets, and the first product is expected to be commercially available within 24 months.”

New Job Applications

admin — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 20:21:38 +0000

WPE is not currently hiring for a specific position but we welcome qualified individuals to submit their resumes for our reference.

Please send a cover letter and CV to careers@wpeh2o.com

Trace Dawson Roses joins Water Planet Engineering

admin — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 00:40:27 +0000

Trace Roses attended the University of California Santa Barbara and graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Marketing and Business from California State University Northridge. Her background is in market research and international project management, with an emphasis on infrastructure design. She has been instrumental in increasing inter-departmental efficiency, such as her prior work on a program to interface sales and accounting. Among the global projects Trace has actively participated in, she was chosen as the lead for an intercontinental market research project for Shell Oil. Trace comes to WPE from a leading international architecture firm headquartered in downtown Los Angeles. She will be responsible for operations and administration at WPE.

Dr. Anna Jawor joins Water Planet Engineering

admin — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:38:50 +0000

Dr. Anna Jawor joins WPE as a recent Ph.D. graduate from the UCLA Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. In her Ph.D., Dr. Jawor explored fundamental and applied aspects of a novel, nanoparticle-enhanced ultrafiltration process for removal of toxic metals from water. Dr. Jawor began her graduate work in the United States in the UC Riverside Chemical & Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Riverside where she explored fundamental aspects of mineral scaling in brackish water RO desalination applications. Previously, Dr. Jawor earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Environmental Engineering from the Department of Environmental Engineering, Institute of Water Supply and Environmental Protection, Cracow University of Technology.

Dr. Arian Edalat, Ph.D. joins Water Planet Engineering

admin — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 00:36:59 +0000

Dr. Arian Edalat has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from University of Bradford, Bradford, U.K.; his dissertation research focused on mechanisms of oil/water separation using electro-chemical de-emulsification. Subsequently, Dr. Edalat took his Chemical Engineering background and worked on a range of industrial and municipal separation problems and technologies. Dr. Edalat was Operations and Maintenance Director, Plant Manager and Technical Director for the Noor Vijeh Company (N.V.Co.) in Tehran, Iran. Following that, Dr. Edalat was Managing Director and Vice President of Operations and Business Development for the First Group of Companies in Tehran, Iran and Dubai, U.A.E. In these positions, Dr. Edalat variously managed and supervised the installation, commissioning, operation, and maintenance of several large-scale industrial and municipal RO desalination plants in the Middle East.

WPE awarded engineering contract to design oil/water separation equipment for use in oil spill response and remediation.

admin — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 20:41:39 +0000

After WPE founders successfully demonstrated the concept last year during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, WPE was retained by Blue Planet Water Solutions to design an advanced oil de-watering platform for use on Blue Planet’s Gulp Series Oil Skimming Barges and for plug-and-play use on oil spill response vessels of opportunity in global oil spill cleanup applications.

Dr. Dian Tanuwidjaja, Ph.D. joins Water Planet Engineering

admin — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 04:36:46 +0000

After completing a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering at UCLA, Dr. Dian Tanuwidjaja, Ph.D. has joined Water Planet Engineering. Dr. Tanuwidjaja’s Ph.D. research was sponsored by the Long Beach Water Department (LBWD). In her Ph.D. research, Dr. Tanuwidjaja developed (patent pending) membrane fouling detectors and tested them at LBWD’s two-pass nanofiltration seawater desalination demonstration plant. The fouling detectors allowed Dr. Tanuwidjaja to learn new fundamental mechanisms governing biofouling of seawater RO and NF membranes as well as optimal pretreatment regimes to alleviate biofouling. Dr. Tanuwidjaja is leading WPE’s desalination research and engineering team.

Jason Lake Joins Water Planet Engineering

admin — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 19:08:27 +0000

Jason Lake graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science and a Minor in Economics from Loyola Marymount University to prepare him for his future connecting business and technology. Jason previously worked for 8 Plus Ventures as a Development Associate where he was responsible for technical diligence and competitive market analysis for new investments and assisted portfolio companies with business and technical composition and product development. Jason then joined Blue Planet Water Solutions as a Project Manager focused on the production, delivery, and installation of oil-water separation systems for clients in the Gulf of Mexico, which lead to the introduction to Water Planet Engineering. Jason joins Water Planet Engineering responsible for Business Development and manages WPE’s marketing, finances, and business relations.