T his year has seen a great deal of

market activity in the filtration and

separation industry, as companies try to

raise their value by either increasing their

market share through acquisitions, mergers

or joint ventures, or by focussing on their

core businesses through disposals.

However, none of this year’s acquisitions

have rivaled last year’s US$6.2 billion

acquisition of US Filter by French

communications and utility group, Vivendi.

Now it appears that US Filter may bc on

the move again. During the initial public

offering (IPO) ofvivendi’s environmental

services arm,Vivendi Environment, which

includes both US Filter and G&n&ale des

Eaux in July, it transpired that RWE, a

German utility group had made an offer to

buy Vivendi Environment for almost $30

million earlier in the year. Although

Vivendi rejected the offer and has said it

intends to retain its interest in the

company until 2003, the rumours of a sale

ofvivendi Environment are persisting.

Filtration+Separation will keep you

informed of any developments, so watch

this space....

Zero emission plants are the ideal every

company is striving to achieve, which is

good news for the filtration and separation

industry. However, the idea of being able

to detoxify process waste streams and

recover valuable by-products in the same

process used to belong in the realms of

fantasy. Now, Membrane Extraction

Technology Ltd, UK, has developed a

system using membrane technology that

has turned it into reality (see pg. 30-3 1).

Although the concept of the filtration

and separation industry and the Internet is

still a relatively new one, there is one

Chicago based company, e-Filtration Inc

that is making great in-roads. This month

WC take a close look at wu~w.efilcrarion.

corn, the first e-commerce site devoted to

the multi-million dollar global filtration

market (see pg. 38-39).

Since we are on the subject of the

Internet, have you looked at the

Filtration+Scparation websitc at

m++ltsep.com yet? In addition to featuring

the latest news stories affecting the

industry, you can access the full text of a

selection of technical articles featured in

past issues, as well as the present issue of

the magazine. Other useful features include

job opportunities, information on related

publications and links to a variety of

relevant filtration sites.

The voting for our annual Product

Achievement Awards is going extremely

well. However, we’ve decided to extend

the voting deadline until 25 September

2000, giving you even more time to send

in those completed voting forms (see pg.

25), and to win up to $400 worth of

vouchers for any products from our range

of Industrial Engineering Publications.

Hurry! Get those forms in.

Heather Johnstone

Editor