THE HISTORY OF MEMBRANE DEVELOPMENT SPECIALISTS
Membrane Development Specialists (MDS) was formed in 1980 as a Joint Venture between Brown Bavari Corporation (BBC) of Zurich, Switzerland and Desalination Systems (DSI) of Escondido, California. Its purpose was to develop applications for membrane technology from concept full size plant installation.
To accomplish this task MDS utilized the access to specialty membranes and elements from DSI conducting bench tests that lead to field pilot tests and ultimately resulted in designing membrane equipment that was built and installed for industrial processes. Larry Lien, joined DSI in 1983 and became Managing Director of MDS in 1985. In 1987 Dr. Salimbeni inquired to MDS about the use of membrane technology on waste water from Olive Mills in Italy. This started a long relationship of cooperating on new industrial process membrane applications that continues to this day. Some of the successful membrane based applications MDS has developed over the years are listed below:
BBC dropped out of the Joint Venture in 1990, but DSI continued funding MDS work until DSI was sold to Osmonics in 1997. MDS led Osmonics' membrane applications group until Osmonics was acquired in 2003 by General Electric. Upon which time the MDS name was abandoned as a separate entity. Larry stayed on at GE until he retired on August 1, 2006. With the blessing of GE, Larry reestablished the MDS name under an LLC in California on September 1, 2006.
Membrane Development Specialists
921 "A" S Andreasen Drive
Escondido, CA 92029
Phone: (619) 857-7930