Party for International Students

Last Tuesday we joined a party for international students who will graduate on March 2016. Although we will graduated in 2017, we participated in this party as guests who have a performance.  We performed in front of hundreds of people. There was a little dither at first seconds but finally we did it.We chose a Vietnamese song with our traditional dress. There was a special support from our special friend from Thailand. It could be say that if we hadn't received his support, our performance wouldn't have attracted audience. It was really a wonderful time. Let's enjoy again our performance.

2nd NU Membrane workshop

On 13rd November we hold successfully 2^nd NU Membrane workshop. The topic was Forward osmosis (FO). FO membrane is emerging membrane technology that could play an important role in the production of water, and recovery of energy and resources in many water treatment applications. 

We were please to welcome the participants from water treatment industrial commercial companies and students from Nagasaki University. Keynote speaker was Prof. Hokyong Shon from University of Technology, Sydney. Also, we had web-conferences with Prof. from Australia and USA. Despite of difference in time (USA was 2 AM in the early morning on 13rd Nov while we were lately afternoon in Japan), they enthusiastically presented their topics. 

The 3rd NU Membrane workshop will be held on July next year. We are happy to welcome you all to our workshop. Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or sharing ideas.

Now let's enjoy some photos of the  2n NU Membrane workshop.

Prof. Hokyong Shon is presenting his topic 

Web-conference with Australia and USA

Our sweet memorable memories

This time is really a point time for looking back warm days in summer. Now Nagasaki is around 16-18 celsius degree. It's not too much cold to make us feel uncomfortable. At first, we expect to see how autumn Japan is. While there is not too much change in landscape, the weather suddenly change. We almost come from tropical country where temperature is always above 28 celcius degree. So we are not familiar with the rapid change of weather. And we also heard that, day by day the temperature will decrease and can reach 0 celsius degree. OMG! It is really terrible.

Just for fun, when looking back summer, we have some sweet memories to share with you.

Hanging out with our Vietnamese Professor. He was a keynote speaker in our first NU Membrane workshop. We had lunch with him and our Japanese Professor. After that, we had a city trip and joined a summer festival held in Nagasaki port. We think he had a nice memory with Nagasaki by the attraction firework performance in this festival. Now he is in Australia and we hope to see him again. 

We call this is an international party. On this day, we had [Japan, Vietnam, Thai, Korea] food. We had to ask our neighbours for extra chairs, this means we had many people and it also means we had lots of fun ^^ 

Unzen trip with international friends. 

Ms Kung - an exchange student from Thailand. She was in Japan in 1 month for doing her master thesis. She had lots of fun with us, especially her Thai friends. She said that the biggest thing she got after this trip was knowledge and international friendship.

Fire drill

How amazing Sunday was! We joined an interesting fire drill and were showed how to survive when be on fire. We got how to use the fire extinguisher, how to escape from the high building or from the smoked area, how to do a basic first aid, etc. We deeply appreciate the thoughtful preparation of Nagasaki fire station officers. They have showed us the ways how to survive when fire occurs. The more things you know, the more opportunities you get for saving yourself and people around you. We also realize the risks that firefighters have to be faced. The firefighters do admire jobs in helping the victims get out of the fire.  We really admire them. Let’s enjoy some photos of our amazing Sunday.

 

 

Urakami site trip

Such a wonderful day! Instead of having lecture in classroom, we had a site trip to go to Urakami drinking water treatment plant (DWTP). Urakami DWTP was built in 1945. Until now, it has operated for 70 years. This plant plays an important role in Nagasaki inhabitant’s life. It supplies many purposes with clean water. Although it was a rainy day, we were really excited to enjoy our first site tour. We were greeted by warm welcome from Urakami staffs. We really appreciate their help and hospitality during our trip. The site tour helped us more understand lectures and gave us actual view point in drinking water treatment plant. Let's enjoy some photos from our trip.

Can you find the difference between 2 pictures above? ^^

Surprisingly, this dam is very huge. 

We were attracted not only by its beauty but also by its majestic view.

The performance briefly shows coagulation and sedimentation processes.

From left to right, raw water, coagulation, and sedimentation.

Weekly diary

Finally we got how to make a membrane. It was really interesting. For the first time, we made a membrane which had the salt rejection over 97%. Although it was not high as we expected, we really love it. It was the fruit of our one hour working hard.

Our Proffesor was giving us some comments about our experiment result

BOD analysis again! We do it every week. We are planning to get data series about our Membrane Bioreactor system. It was a little tired because of long time working. Usually we work in arround 8 hours from noon to late night. However, it will be a nice chance for us to get more lab skills and it will also be nice memories for us to look back when we graduate :D

This week seems to be an international cultural exchange week in Nagasaki. Several activities were held for foreign students. We wore Vietnamese traditional dress (Aodai) and went there. Let's enjoy some our nice photos.

Weekly diary...

What a good news! We have 3 new members in this semester. Now our course has 9 students from Vietnam, Thailand, Korea, China and Nigeria. Last Wednesday, new students joined the BOD analysis with us. It was really hard for them at the first time. They make us look back last semester. We also had a hard period with lab works. Some students have done lab works before while other students haven't worked in lab. However, we all passed this period and got precious knowledge and experiences. We believe that difficulties will help us be stronger. So, new students, fightingggg!!!

This week we also enjoyed a festival for people who are in love and will be in love. Nagasaki not only makes us feel peace but also makes us be interested in several festivals. We were really impressive by this festival. We enjoyed Japanese festival atmosphere, Japanese food, fireworks and a special concert conducted by our special friend. We will introduce our special friend in next articles. Now, let's enjoy some photos which show our interesting memories. 

2nd NU Membrane Workshop - Registration is now open!

We are pleased to announce that the 2nd NU Membrane Workshop focusing on forward osmosis will be held at Nagasaki University on 13 November. The workshop will be joined by colleagues in Sydney and three speakers remotely presenting through Skype. 

Title:    Emerging membrane-based desalination technology: Forward Osmosis
Date:   Friday 13th of November 2015
Time:  11:00  – 15:30 (JPN)
          13:00  – 17:30 (AUS)
Registration fees:   FREE

Forward osmosis (FO) membrane is emerging membrane technology that could play a crucial role in the production of water, and recovery of energy and resources in many water treatment applications. This workshop provides the fundamental knowledge and recent advances of these advanced techniques in Japan and Australia, particularly focusing on applications using FO membranes.

For registration and further details, go to our website below.
http://www.waterenviron.com/home/un-workshop/access-workshop

Private tour in Tucson & Orange County

The author (Taka) visited in the University of Arizona (AZ) and Orange County Water District (CA) on 22 and 23 Sep, respectively. I had good luck from the beginning of the trip - a free upgrade for my JAL flight from Osaka to Los Angeles despite my not-high membership status in JAL. Thanks JAL!

My first day in the US started with a visit in Tucson, AZ where the University of Arizona (UA) is located. Prof. Shane Snyder helped me out to arrange a seminar (& a nice accommodation for my stay!). I would like to thank Shane for his help and warm hospitality during my stay in Tucson. Shane's lab houses quite a few analytical instruments for the analysis of trace organics (the lab looks like a large booth in an analytical instrument exposition) and he has just opened up a new research centre for many water treatment activities. Anyway, during the seminar I gave a presentation focusing on the removal of trace organics by reverse osmosis membranes for potable water reuse, which actually got a strong attention from professors and students working in the department. It is always good to get a feedback from many professional people working in a similar field, particularly from places where water issue is actually happening. After my visit in UA, Shane showed me around Tucson city and we also enjoyed beers discussions about research at a local bar. Btw, I forgot to take any photos during my stay in Tucson...

A sign at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

I spent my second day in Orange County Water District (OCWD), California. They have the world largest water reclamation plant used for indirect potable water reuse. Surprisingly, the inside and outside of the facility doesn't look like 7-8 years old but rather like brand new! The scientist who showed me around explained the reason like that's because of the arid condition (= less subject to rust?). After having lunch at a Mongolian BBQ restaurant, I gave a presentation that is actually quite similar to what I did at UA. While my presentation was about 40-min long only, we had additional one hour to talk about the details of the research findings and ongoing research. I realised that the US is the place where my main research gets most attention! In any case, I met a number of professional scientists and engineers at OCWD and had great discussions. I really appreciate their help and hospitality during my stay.

 Reverse osmosis (RO) units.

 RO permeate, RO feed, and RO concentrate (from left to right).

Many states in the US like California, Arizona, Colorado, Texas (and maybe many more) are suffering from droughts and unbalanced supply & demand. Though Japan doesn't really have any issues in terms of quantity of water, I am hoping that technologies Japan has can contribute to solve some of the water-related issues happening in the US.

I was too lazy to take photos during this trip but I will try to get as many photos as possible for this blog next time!

Our Summer vacation

This week is the final week of our Summer vacation. We have enjoyed our first Summer vacation in Japan. There's only one word to say: "Wonderful". We went to many wonderful places in Nagasaki and had good times with our friends. Now, we are ready for new semester. Although there will have some challenges waiting us ahead, we will try our best and get the best achievements.

Here are our memorable memories.

 We were in Penguin Aquarium

 Ready for Kayaking

BBQ party in our dormitory front yard

Now, we are ready for new semester! Maku, see you in next week ^o^

Our new mascot debut

Following the yesterday's launch of our blog, we are also pleased to announce the debut of our new mascot called MAK.

His name comes from the name & pronunciation of "membrane" in Japanese - "Maku". His hair and body are apparently made of "hollow fibre membrane". Where is "spiral wound membrane"....? We will hopefully have that feature on our next mascot.

He actually made his debut at our first workshop on the name tag of each delegate. He will often appear at our events from now on.

designed by Sandrine 

Our new blog launched today

We are very pleased to announce the launch of our new blog.

Great!

We are aware that no one knows about this blog as of today, though.

"I will support your blog with Monsieur Lapin!! Count us in!" by Princess Fujioka (3 months old).



We now have two supporters:)