The American Filtration and Separations Society (AFS) held its annual FILTCON Conference in April, with Louisville, KY as the host city. The event did not disappoint, and it began with the opportunity to take two industry tours to Microbac Laboratories and GE FirstBuild, as well as the annual installment of the AFS Filtration Short Course. An opening networking reception followed the tours and coursework.
The two full conference days included over 25 themed sessions, a robust exposition of 20 vendors from various sectors of the filtration and separation supply chain, and a presentation of AFC’s prestigious awards and annual student poster sessions rounded out the event.
Awards for Excellence
Dr. Eunkyoung Shim, Ph.D. Fiber and Polymer Science was awarded the 2025 Frank Tiller Award – For Leadership in Engineering and Education. Dr. Shim earned a Ph.D. from the Wilson College of Textiles at NC State University in Fiber & Polymer Science in 1991.
Dr. Shim joined The Nonwovens Institute in 2006 as a Research Assistant Professor and currently serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Textile Engineering, Chemistry and Science. Named in honor of Dr. Frank Tiller, the internationally acclaimed “Father of Modern Filtration Theory” and key founding member of the AFS, this award highlights scientific merit. The Tiller Award recognizes individuals for outstanding lifetime scientific and engineering achievements in the Technology of Fluid-Particle Separation.
Other esteemed awardees included:
- Wells Shoemaker Award – For service & leadership in action: Saravanan Andan, PhD.
- Senior Scientist – For Significant Contributions to the Technology of Filtration and Separation: Kaiyi Liu, PhD.
- Prof. George Chase Award – For Excellence in Academic Research: Sneha Swaminathan, PhD.
Celebrating the Next Generation
FILTCON25 Student Poster Competition celebrated the next generation of filtration and separation innovators. The top posters awarded were (see photo on page 44): 1st Place: Moni Mahesh Ghosh, The University of Akron; 2nd Place: Pranto Paul, University of Kentucky; 3rd Place (Tie): Cecilia Abella, University of Hawaii at Manoa and Youngwoo Hwang, North Carolina State University. Honorable Mentions included Samuel Thompson (University of Kentucky), Mara Baughman-Leach (University of Kentucky), and Usman Yousaf (University of Kentucky).
Career in Filtration Roundtable
AFS held the first-ever insightful and engaging “Career in Filtration” Industry Roundtable, where students could connect with industry professionals and learn about exciting career paths in academia and industry.
The conversation focused on the diverse opportunities within the filtration and separation field, emphasizing the importance of strong communication skills, collaboration, and innovation. From research and development to real-world applications, the panelists shared valuable advice for students seeking to impact the industry.
Science and Innovation on Display
Session tracks included topics on emerging contaminants, wastewater treatment, automotive, technologies for gaseous pollutants removal, biopharma and carbon capture, standards and testing, and developments in membrane filtration.
One session bringing a new topic to the conference was from Jialong Shen, a Research Faculty at North Carolina State University, who presented “Carbonic Anhydrase Immobilized Textile Gas-Liquid Contactor for C02 Capture.” Shen shared how reactive absorption effectively captures CO2 at atmospheric pressure, which is the condition in which combustion-based power plants emit CO2. However, high-energy penalty associated with conventional amine-based solvent hinders its wide implementation. Alternative low-regeneration energy solvents have been studied, but they often have slow absorption kinetics. Carbonic anhydrase (CA) shows promise as a rate enhancement catalyst for low-energy aqueous solvents used in CO2 reactive absorption process.
Textiles are ideally suited as gas-liquid (G-L) contactors and enzyme immobilization supports: they are already used in many advanced filtration media; they are lightweight, economical, flexible, and
durable materials that can be fabricated in many shapes and have high surface areas and abundance of functional groups for chemical modification.
The biocatalytic textile contactors are remarkably robust across many different tested conditions, delivering similar percent CO2 capture regardless of inlet CO2 concentrations, provided that the solvent had sufficient buffering capacity for the amount of CO2 in the gas stream. The biocatalytic textile could withstand repeated washing and drying, immersion and shaking in heated solvents, and continuous testing for up to one thousand hours without performance reduction. The biocatalytic textile contactors are easy to scale up using textiles processing machinery. They will be able to meet the
volume requirements for the vast CO2 capture industry and can be used either as “drop-in” in existing CO2 reactive absorption facilities or custom fit novel capture configurations such as when needed for coupling with downstream CO2 utilization processes.
Another interesting session from Angela Maria Fasnacht Ph.D., M.P.H., P.E., Andlinger Center Fellow, Princeton University, PFAS Advisor, Komline spoke on how per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) present significant challenges in water and wastewater treatment due to their persistence, toxicity, and widespread presence. The study presented evaluated the performance of an iterative set of combinatorial treatment solutions, including Reverse Osmosis (RO), Nano-filtration (NX), Granular Activated Carbon
(GAC), Ion Exchange (IX), Surface-Activated Foam Fractionation (SAFF), and advanced destruction techniques.
A systematic evaluation has optimized treatment efficiencies across diverse water matrices, such as drinking water, industrial effluents, and wastewater streams. Key findings highlight how matrix-specific factors, including ionic strength, organic matter content, and co-contaminants, significantly impact the removal efficiency of each technology. The study highlighted the importance of integrating multiple treatment approaches, leveraging their complementary strengths to enhance removal efficiency while addressing economic and operational constraints. Moreover, the lessons learned underscore the critical role of destruction technologies in achieving sustainable, end-to-end PFAS management, ensuring minimal environmental reintroduction.
The final takeaways from the study concluded that an PFAS treatment overall strategy pointed to the use of an innovative system design plus the right material selection, which equals effective, compliant PFAS treatment, among other factors.
Plenary Sessions on Membranes
Two plenary sessions included two interesting talks that included:
Dibakar Bhattacharyya, a Professor at the University of Kentucky, focused on the innovative potential of functionalized microfiltration membranes. These membranes tackle biotherapeutic applications like
viral vector production and environmental remediation challenges, including PFAS removal and metal recovery. Bhattacharyya highlighted cutting-edge membrane filtration techniques that streamline processes, reduce costs, and boost efficiency in these critical fields.
Adil Dhalla, Managing Director, Separation Technologies Applied Research and Translation (START) Centre and SG MEM, Singapore Membrane Consortium, discussed how Singapore has become a leader in water and membrane innovations, addressing the challenges of scaling laboratory-based inventions to market-ready solutions, showcasing pilot-scale testing for seawater desalination and other vital water treatment technologies.
Tours Inspire Problem-Solving
The pre-event tours included visits to testing facility, Microbac Laboratories, and innovation hub GE FirstBuild.
The Louisville office of Microbac Laboratories tests for the environmental and food sectors and is one of 32 locations, making the company the largest privately held laboratory group in the country. The tour included seeing the process from sample intake to active testing stations, as well as a look at filtration methods and filters commonly used in the lab.
GE FirstBuild is an innovation hub for the global appliance company. They identify and prototype new product ideas for GE. What is unique is the way they test product ideas through crowdsourcing, such as in the Sourdough Sidekick campaign (above). The inventors identify a need among consumers and then engage with likely users to evaluate the products viability and design prototype. Consumers can pre-buy the appliance at a discount, and if the amount raised meets or exceeds a pre-determined amount, like $250K, then the appliance goes into mass production. This center also serves as a community workshop and resource hub for other inventors.
See www.afssociety.org for plans for FILTCON 2026.
