Ultura™ is the new name for APTwater Rochem, the California-based membrane technology business that last year bought out the remainder of the Sepro membrane business from its Japanese partner.
All three brand names – APTwater, Rochem and Sepro – together with the Hipox advanced oxidation process, were relaunched on 24 February 2014 under the new overall brand, Ultura.
At the launch, John Kaestle, CEO of Ultura Inc, based in Oceanside, declared that this integration created a new force in high-recovery membrane technologies specializing in the most difficult to treat and valuable waters.
Ultura’s focus markets will include: rare earths and mining; treatment of the complex cocktails of leachate from landfill sites; on-vessel gray/black water treatment and desalination for delicate marine ecosystems; electro-coating for the automotive industry; food and dairy; and advanced process separations for life sciences.
Michael Froud, chief governance officer of Ultura, said, “Our combined portfolio of products and services will allow us to pursue our vision of becoming the only truly full-service membrane technology company to specialize solely on the difficult-to-treat and valuable waters segment. With 2,500+ installations worldwide, an established presence in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, plus our growing Asia team based out of Singapore and Shanghai, we will provide our customers with one of the largest pools of dedicated expertise in the world.”
Rochem was founded in 1982 in Germany, where it started with reverse osmosis (RO) and in 1986 embarked upon a research and development program to produce the Disc Tube Module Technology that was patented worldwide.
This system with its high tolerance to fouling, high recovery rate and high rejection qualities led over two decades to more than 8,000 worldwide installations, including one of Europe’s largest liquid waste processing RO sites.
In November 2011, Rochem and APTwater, a start-up wastewater treatment company from Long Beach, announced a merger, which also included Sepro, in which Rochem had a holding. That holding was bought out from Sojitz Corporation in October 2013.
This latest announcement promises new product development announcements shortly in the “functionalized membrane space” and new service offerings, such as off-balance sheet funding of design-build-own-operate-maintain schemes.