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March 14, 2011

Insuring Safety When Storing Nuclear Waste

The recent earthquake in Japan must make us re-examine the safety of our own nuclear facilities. Milling of uranium and storage of nuclear wastes continue to be a significant issue, and one which requires both regional and national scrutiny. DAI offers a specialized activated alumina providing a means to concentrate radioactive contaminants which are found in water supplies, as well as topsoil.

We are particularly concerned about what will happen with the seawater that is currently being poured into the Japanese nuclear power plants. While we anticipate that the seawater will be sent back into the ocean, a best-case scenario, it is also possible that the liquid effluent may end up in groundwater supplies as well as topsoil, a worrisome potentiality.

Similar concerns are found at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, as well as other storage facilities for nuclear waste throughout the United States. At the time of this terrible tragedy in Japan it is appropriate for us to once again re-examine our global ability to appropriately store and dispose of nuclear wastes. While we cannot eliminate nuclear contamination, DAI’s Dyna-AquaTM Uranium specialized alumina product is able to concentrate material so that it can be appropriately stored and buried.

Gary Witman, M.D

March 3, 2011

Cleaning Up the World's Rivers and Waterways

It’s unfortunate much of the attention dealing with cleaning up our waterways comes from the occurrence of environmental disasters such as the BP oil spill. While events such as these deserve massive attention, it’s important not to lose site of the need to intensify coverage of the need to clean up pollution in waterways throughout the world, and the efforts being made to do so.

In this country, there have been many efforts to clean up our rivers and waterways with great success, along with several commitments to continue those efforts to finish the job. Examples include:

  • Efforts to rid the Housatonic and Hudson Rivers of PCBs will resume or continue
  • After a couple of decades improving water quality in Massachusetts’ and Rhode Island’s Blackstone River, (one of the oldest working and until a couple of decades ago, one of the most polluted rivers in the US), to the point of making it safe for canoeing and kayaking, efforts are underway to clean up the river to allow swimming and fish consumption over the next few years.
  • While not as polluted as it was in the early 20th century, an effort is underway to remove trash, bacteria and other pollution from the Baltimore Harbor which, thanks to much neglect, has become a toxic environment.

When DAI developed Dyna-AquaTM Oil Sorb in response to the BP Oil Spill, it had the added benefit of picking up pollutants as well as the oil, including the Corexit that was used to disperse the oil. By impregnating cotton fibers on mats with a unique, specially designed alumina, and dragging the mats across the water, DAI has developed a highly effective method of removing pollution from rivers or waterways.

DAI applauds all efforts to clean the world’s waterways and stands by ready to assist with a method that is both cost-effective and superior to other methods.

Gary B. Witman, MD and Dr. Mark Moskovitz

February 9, 2011

EPA Announces Plan to Study Fracking

While many states are tightening regulations regarding fracking, the process of hydraulic drilling for shale natural gas, the EPA just announced their first study regarding  the ramifications of fracking.  Expected to take 2 years, "under the preliminary version of the overhaul, the EPA will investigate instances of water contamination in three to five sites, as a sample from the far wider number of troubled fracking sites across the country. EPA investigators would also conduct two or three full case studies to examine the environmental effects of fracking over the full course of a cycle of gas extraction." See "EPA Outlines How It Will Study Fracking."

A recent blog discussed the issues with fracking, and DAI's alumina based solution to the problem.  "Dynamic’s customized alumina can provide an optimum solution for removing pollutants from the wells that result from shale natural gas drilling, something that would substantially reduce the downside of drilling in this country."

We applaud the EPA and other regulatory efforts and look forward to working with drilling and other companies to provide a cleaner, safer environment when it comes to dealing with fracking related pollution.

Gary B. Witman, MD and Dr. Mark Moskovitz

January 21, 2011

Purifying Nutraceuticals

The nutraceutical industry is thriving and growing throughout the world, with sales approaching 100 billion dollars in the United States, and close to 200 billion dollars worldwide. The annual growth rate in the United States alone is estimated to be around 12% annually.

Nutraceuticals are defined as foods or food products that provide additional health benefits beyond those of nutrition, including disease treatment and prevention. Examples include:

  • Processed foods such as soups, beverages, cereals and some candy fortified with various vitamins and minerals (also called functional foods)

  • Dietary supplements consisting of food nutrients in capsule or pill form, such as omega fatty acids through fish or flaxseed oil, lycopene, lutein, grape seed extract and reservraftol, acai berries, pomegranate, and green tea

  • Botanical or herbal extracts such as ginseng, ginko biloba, saw palmetto, or garlic.

An estimated 2/3 of the US population takes some form of nutraceuticals on a monthly basis for their purported health benefits. Many nutraceuticals are sold on their possible ability to help prevent diseases or conditions such as cancer, lowering of cholesterol, lowering of blood pressure, weight loss, raising of energy levels, improvement of memory, improvement of circulation, maintenance of strong internal organs, as well as dealing with a host of other diseases and medical conditions. I say “purported” and “possible” because studies that provide proof of their effectiveness are often non-existent, few and far between, or conflicting. Research is more conclusive for some nutraceutical supplements, but only for treatment of very specific conditions.

One problem may be that the responsible government agencies, including the FDA, do not regulate nutraceuticals or dietary supplements in the same manner that they regulate pharmaceutical products or vitamins. They do crack down on companies making statements about product effectiveness companies can’t prove, which is why you’ll see many nutraceuticals marketed with statements such as “xxx product may have antioxidant qualities or may help prevent xxx condition.”

In addition to effectiveness, the other main issue of interest involving nutraceuticals for consumers is the overall quality of the product – to what extent the product contains poisonous or other detrimental components that may cause harm to the user. The federal government, via the FDA, is seeking to toughen regulations through uniform standards and other means regarding the quality of nutraceuticals and supplements, bringing the US more up to speed with other countries.

Regardless of regulations or lack thereof, as price competition becomes more intense within the industry, so will product quality. By most accounts, the overall quality of nutraceuticals and supplements has increased over the last several years, with most companies striving to increase the overall safety of products.

At Dynamic, we constantly tout the fact that our unique alumina has become a sort of super substance because it is capable of providing high or highest quality solutions to so many environmental cleanup needs. DAI’s unique alumina  also has the capability of purifying nutraceutical and pharmaceutical products, such as fish oil – eliminating hazardous substances such as arsenic, mercury, selenium, polychlorinated biphenyls (pcbs) and other dangers or hazardous substances.

DAI is proud to be actively working with leading supplement and nutraceutical manufacturers in using alumina to allow them to provide the highest quality product possible and insuring that nutraceutical and supplement users receive the safest products on the market. We look forward to working with other companies in the industry in using DAI’s unique alumina to ensure the highest level of health and safety for all consumers when using nutraceuticals or pharmaceuticals. 

Read our technical papers on using chromatography to purify nutraceuticals and the need for tougher regulations for nutritional supplements.

Gary B. Witman, MD and Dr. Mark Moskovitz

December 20, 2010

Aflatoxin, Chromium 6 and Alumina

A leading supermarket chain recently recalled several bags of pet food from 19 states due to the possibility they contain aflatoxin, a toxic chemical and powerful carcinogen produced by several species of the fungus Aspergillus. The chemical can be found in several crops, most notably the peanut.  While it can affect all life, it mostly affects animals eating infected feed or pet food, and can be found in the milk of animals eating infected food.

High enough doses can kill animals, while harmless, minute doses can be found in some foods such as peanut butter. The FDA sets limitations on the amount of aflatoxin that can be found in food products.

DAI's specialzed alumina can be used to remove aflatoxin from peanuts and other food sources, providing another example of how DAI's existing specialized or customized alumina can deal with environmental and health problems.

And while we are on the subject of potential health risks, the EPA is concerned about the potential health risks of another carcinogen, Chromium 6, found in the tap water of 31 cities across the country. The agency said it will look at increasing the standards for allowable content in drinking water. DAI's activated alumina is the best method to remove Chromium 6 from the water supply.

As we look forward towards 2011 and beyond, DAI vows to continue our efforts to work with government agencies and businesses to use alumina and other products to provide superior, cost-effective solutions to protect the environment and the health and safety of people all over the world.

Happy holidays and new year to everyone, and continued success in the years to come.

Dr. Mark Moskovitz

December 3, 2010

DAI Provides Optimal Solution for Dealing with Shale Natural Gas Related Pollution

Recent media articles have touched on the growing interest in using natural gas as an alternative energy source. Discoveries of large fuel reserves and technology improvements in drilling and hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking) to break through the shale have made shale natural gas much more accessible and profitable.

The problem with the new fracking and drilling techniques, along with the poor condition of the wells, is the resultant air and wastewater pollution that has caused a public backlash against natural gas drilling, especially in the more populated areas where fracking and drilling are taking place.

Currently, the states regulate fracking, and while the federal government deals with adopting federal regulations and some states look to adopt stricter regulations, many US and international companies are drilling outside the United States, threatening the US lead in the global shale natural gas market.

If you have been reading our blogs or our website, you probably know where we are going here. Just recently, Dynamic’s Dyna-Aqua Oil SorbTM product was shown to provide an optimum solution for removing not only the oil from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but resultant pollutants from the ocean. Our DrysphereTM product provides the optimum solution for drying natural gas and liquids.

Dynamic’s customized alumina can provide an optimum solution for removing pollutants from the wells that result from shale natural gas drilling, something that would substantially reduce the downside of drilling in this country. It would not only allow the US to retain its market share lead, but provide for safer operations throughout the world.

Once again, Dynamic’s unique, highest quality alumina leads the way in providing a cleaner, safer environment, reducing our reliance on oil, and enhancing our country’s economy.

Dr. Mark Moskovitz

November 22, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving

Just want to take this opportunity to wish our customers and fellow business men and women a happy Thanksgiving and a healthy and prosperous New Year.  We look forward to working with many of you to build a safer, healthier world for which a growing number of people can be thankful.

Dr. Mark Moskovitz

November 15, 2010

An Important Reminder - the Superiority of Alumina over Silica - DAI's Extends "Try Alumina for Free" Offer

Like most adsorbent companies, DAI continues to sell silica gel to many of it's customers.  But during the past year, a growing number of our customers, from university research labs and chromatography users to larger companies engaged in various forms of environmental cleanup operations, have taken our advice and switched to alumina for their adsorbent needs.

Thanks to the limitations of silica and alumina's capabilities, alumina in most cases provides a superior method of purifying or separating compounds.  It's advantages make it not only a superior method, but allow it to be modified and used for a much wider range of applications.

"Alumina is in many ways a miracle substance due to its amphoteric properties that allow it to be used with neutral, acidic and basic compounds. This makes it a superior ingredient for many environmental cleanup and separation applications.  DAI's proprietary technology used to produce the highest quality and specialized alumina products makes its activated alumina the most effective substance available for the widest range of applications."

Among the main benefits, alumina:

  • Displays amphoteric properties

  • Is more stable

  • Has much higher values of pH pzc

  • Is well suited for use in high temperature HPLC and does not break down like silica

  • Has Lewis acid sites responsible for ligand exchange ability

  • Has strong affinity for halides

  • Can be used to remove, among other things: Polychlorinated biphenyls ( PCBs), insecticides, radioactive contamination, lead, toxic waste, heavy metals, colors or dyes, chemical pyrogens, arsenic, and oil.  In addition, DAI's specialized alumina can be used dry and dehydrate gas and liquids, and provide the highest rate of reducing most bacteria, viruses, spores and fungi.

It's important to note that many of alumina's advantages are due to DAI's unique ability to manipulate pore and particle size, and manufacture the highest quality alumina in the industry.

Just recently, DAI's alumina was shown to remove not just the oil from the recent oil spill, but many of the contaminants including Corexit dispersed by BP.

Due to its success and importance to many companies, DAI will continue it's program to allow users to try 100 grams of alumina for free.  Just call us (1-866-314-7672) for your sample material, and let us know about your requirements. Our technical support team is available to make sure that the transition is seamless. (This offer is limited to one sample per customer).

I want to thank those of you who have upgraded during the year and wish you continued success, and hope others will join them in realizing the added benefits that alumina can provide for your company or lab.

Dr. Mark Moskovitz

November 5, 2010

DrysphereTM – Dynamic’s highest quality alumina for gas and liquid dehydration, gets even better with more sizes available

At Dynamic, we are proud of the fact that our alumina is not only the highest quality in the industry, but can be obtained in more size variations for more applications than the alumina available from any other competitor. We are just as proud of the fact that we continue to develop better, more diverse alumina products to not only meet the current needs of clients but to deal with environmental and health and safety crises throughout the world.

While Dynamic continues working with authorities to provide solutions for recent environmental cleanup and potential health and safety disasters, we have also recently improved our industry leading DrysphereTM product line. DrysphereTM is now available in a number of sizes, from ¼” to 1/32nd” or 800 micron, giving the product better performance and greater flexibility, and the ability to be used for new lab and other applications.

DrysphereTM is a high technology, dust-free, spherical, activated alumina manufactured and designed to optimize desiccant performance. It contains a dust free, spherical activated alumina manufactured as specialized desiccant agents that works through the process of adsorption and is designed for the removal of water, oil and other heavy hydrocarbons from inert gases including nitrogen, helium and argon. The superior adsorption is achieved by the hydrophilic characteristics, the design of the microporosity and the extent of the achieved surface area.

DrysphereTM is the ONLY activated alumina on the market that can extract and adsorb 36% of its own weight in water, which is 3 times more than the standard alumina product offered by competitors, 20% more than silica and 32% more than DrieriteTM It is the superior desiccant agent in the marketplace for the drying of industrial liquids and gases.

In addition to the wide range of sizes available, DrysphereTM is available in refillable or disposable cartridges. Other features and benefits:

  • Easy to pack, very convenient to use
  • Very permeable
  • Dry, dust-free configuration
  • Will not contaminate gas/liquid streams with particulates
  • Suitable for lab/pilot/process preparation of dust-free, dry streams
  • Cleans organics while it dries
  • Preferentially adsorbs high polarity impurities
  • Dehydrate acidic gases and liquids without softening or breakage
  • Remove acids from various air or liquid oil streams, etc.

Dynamic's DrysphereTM products are currently being used primarily to purify natural gas coming out of the ground and to keep transformers as dry as possible.  The new sizes can be used for a number of lab applications.

Be sure to check out more details about how DrysphereTM and our other alumina products can help your company when it comes to the drying and purification of gases and liquids.

Dr. Mark Moskovitz

October 8, 2010

Dynamic Adsorbents in Discussions with Hungarian Officials to Use the Dyna-AquaTM Product Line to Deal with the Red Sludge Spill

The recent Hungarian toxic red sludge spill is the latest environmental disaster causing substantial problems for people, wildlife, and the overall environment. While only 4 people were killed with several more missing, more than one hundred suffered from burns and eye ailments, and other serious injuries. There has been tremendous damage to the villages and rivers into which the sludge has flown, killing much wildlife, vegetation, and destroying a number of homes.

As with the recent BP oil spill in the United States, Dynamic’s Dyna-AquaTM alumina products provide an optimal solution to remove the sludge and excessive toxic elements contained in it, and minimize the damage to the waterways in which it is flowing. Dyna-Aqua Oil SorbTM can remove the sludge from the waterways while other Dyna-AquaTM alumina products remove the toxic metals.

Dynamic representatives are now in discussions with Hungarian officials to use Dyna-AquaTM products to remove and detoxify the sludge and minimize harm to the waters it is polluting.

The spill originated from an alumina plant reservoir (the alumina that makes up aluminum vs. the alumina that will fix the problem) and began damaging several rivers, along with its wildlife and vegetation, as it headed toward the River Danube, due in part to the high level of toxic metals contained in it.

According to CNN:

“But the material that flowed out of the reservoir continued to pose a threat. On Wednesday, more than 500 National Disaster Management Authority staffers and soldiers and employees of Hungarian Aluminum Production and Trade Company (MAL), the company that owns the alumina plant's reservoir, were trying to halt the advance of the sludge before it reaches the Danube River's tributaries, said Jeno Lasztovicza, head of the defense committee, according to MTI.

The sludge had already reached the Marcal River, which flows into the River Raba, which empties into the Danube. It was expected to show up in the Danube as soon as this weekend, said Imre Szakacs, head of Gyor-Moson-Sopron County's defense authority, MTI said."

As with many other environmental disasters, Dynamic stands ready to assist with existing or customized alumina products designed to provide the best solutions in dealing with environmental threats to people, wildlife, and our land, sea and air throughout the world.

Dr. Mark Moskovitz

October 6, 2010

It's About Developing the Best Solution Possible for a Cleaner, Safer Environment

At Dynamic Adsorbents, we like to say we’re not about products, we’re about solutions. Sure we have the highest quality alumina and silica products in the industry, and the widest number of options and variations to meet the widest range of applications. But ultimately, we’re about finding the best solutions possible – all of which contribute to a cleaner, safer environment, cleaner, more purified food and drug products, and the utmost in medical safety and protection.

Our unique ability to produce the highest quality alumina and manipulate pore and particle size allow many of our alumina based solutions to deal with some of the most pressing environmental and safety issues of our time. Just some examples:

  • Dyna-Aqua Oil SorbTM, created in response to the recent oil spill, has been tested to provide one of the most effective methods of cleaning up oil spills.
  • Dyna-AquaTM provides optimal solutions for removing uranium, copper, fluoride, lead and other hazardous metals from water.
  • Our new Dyna-CidalTM line, including Dyna-MaskTM and Dyna-SwipesTM, provides the highest level, 99.9+% protection, against HIN1, swine flue, anthrax, and just about all bacteria, viruses, fungi and spores. In addition, when combined with our Dyna-Aqua line, provides one of the highest levels of drinking water quality
  • Dyna-PharmaTM and other alumina products provides the ability to purify fish oil and other nutraceutical and pharmaceuticals products important to health.
  • Specialized alumina can be used to decolorize dyes, pigments, and textile water discharge.
  • DrysphereTM provides the greatest ability to separate water from natural gas and industrial liquids.
  • Dyna-EnergyTM Lithium working at pH levels in excess of 11, provides a superior method to purify high grade lithium, used in car batteries, from geothermal and brine sources.
  • Specialized alumina provides an important tool in cleaning up pcbs.
  • Specialized alumina provide a unique method of arsenic removal that removes both asenite and arsenate compounds from arsenic in a single adsorptive process.
  • Our TLC plates provide an effective method for identifying counterfeit drugs.

So when you contact Dynamic Adsorbents, feel free to ask about our particular products. But be sure to tell us your needs or problems so that we may recommend the best solutions possible. Even if we don’t have a ready made solution, there is a good chance we can create one for you. That’s what makes us the best option. The highest quality and most flexible options.

Dr. Mark Moskovitz

September 20, 2010

It’s Time for Corporations to Fight Back - Let's Hear It for Corporate Responsibility

Some of us involved with Dynamic Adsorbents have been involved in politics at one time or another. We wanted to make our state or country a better place to live and thought, “what better way than getting involved in politics?” That, of course, soon turned into “what was I thinking?” with the realization that working within the political system to make positive change might not be the best way to go.

So we turned our attention to the business sector and eventually realized that doing good things for society and making money don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

At Dynamic, when we say we aren’t about selling products off the shelves but are about finding the best solutions, we mean it. Our latest alumina products, Dyna-Aqua Oil Sorb,TM created to deal with the recent oil spill, and Dyna-Cidal,TM created to provide the highest level of protection against most bacteria, fungi and viruses, are examples of our company commitment to contributing to a cleaner, safer planet. Dyna-Aqua Oil SorbTM was developed quickly to respond to an immediate crisis, while Dyna-CidalTM was developed over time to meet an ongoing problem throughout the world.

As part of our mission, we will continue developing highest quality variations of alumina to best address the particular needs of clients, as well as to address some of the most pressing health, energy, public safety and environmental problems facing our planet. We are currently working with many partners and clients who share our mission.

Crises such as the recent oil spill and financial crisis sometimes give corporations and our political system a bad rap. We look forward to joining with other companies in all forms of relationships to fight back and let the public know that corporations are ready to take the lead in making our planet a healthier and safer place to live for everyone.

Dr. Mark Moskovitz

August 22, 2010

Is the Medicine Worse than the Illness?

The news media is quiet and hush for now about the Deepwater oil spill. Out of sight, out of mind. Hang low and people will forget about what occurred. Place your attention on my immediate and more pressing issues such as the catastrophic flooding in Pakistan and Northeast China. There is no more oil gushing from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, and the microbes are chewing up the remnants of all of the oil, and everything is back to usual.

Do you believe this? I don’t!

As a physician I am trained to look for and to administer aid to those who are unknowingly impacted by the consequences of treatment.

The following is Hippocrates Oath, and for the past 2500 years it was historically administered to physicians about to enter into the practice of medicine.

“ I swear by Apollo, the healer, Asclepius , Hygieia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment, the following Oath and agreement:

To consider dear to me, as my parents, him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and, if necessary, to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art.

I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.

But I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts.

I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.
In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.
All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.

If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.”

Many things have changed in the past 2500 years, and parts of this oath are certainly controversial, but one point remains clear – health care providers first and foremost are to do no harm.

Well, what does this Hippocratic Oath have to do with the Gulf Coast cleanup? Unfortunately, everything.

In the haste to disperse the oil particles and prevent oil from contaminating the Gulf Coast beaches and impacting negatively on summer tourism BP dispersed Corexit. Tons and tons and tons of Corexit: a total of 1.9 million gallons in all. Dr. Susan Shaw, a marine toxicologist recently discussed the impact of Corexit 9500 during an interview on CNN. This solvent was originally developed by Exxon and is now manufactured by Nalco. In a report written by George-Ares and Clark for Exxon Biomedical Sciences, Inc entitled “Acute Aquatic Toxicity of Three Corexit Products: An Overview” Corexit 9500 was deemed to be among the most toxic dispersal agents ever developed. The Corexit product initially used in the oil spill, Corexit 9527 is designated a chronic and acute health hazard by the Environmental Protection Agency. This dispersal agent contains 2-butoxyethanol, as well as propylene glycol and the agent was found to be causally connected with lingering health problems experiences by cleanup workers after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Do we never learn?

Now, let me tell you what is occurring along the Gulf Coast. On August 6th the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (DMR) and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, in coordination with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration along with the FDA ordered the reopening of all Mississippi territorial waters to all commercial and recreational finfish and shrimp fishing activities. Most of the commercial fishermen continue to refuse to trawl, even though the harvesting of the commercial fisheries is their livelihood.

What have regional commercial fishermen done? They have unanimously supported a petition calling for the firing of Dr. Bill Walker, the head of Mississippi’s DMR who is responsible for opening the fishing grounds. Recently Mississippi fishermen have found oil in Garden Pond on Horn Island, massive fish kills near Cat Island and Biloxi, black water in Mississippi Sound, oil inside Pass Christian Harbor and submerged oil in Pass Christian. They are concerned about the eating habits of the American public and the impact of the ingestion of dispersants and oil particles.

We will do our best at Dynamic Adsorbents to have this blemish go away, to remove both the oil and the detergents. I feel that the medicine administered as an antidote may be far worse than the disease, and its side effects a lot longer lingering than any immediate benefits.

Gary B. Witman, MD

August 19, 2010

Here Is What They Don’t Tell Us

The Government media machine did a terrific job of telling the world’s press that there was nothing further to worry about – just about all of the oil in the Gulf had evaporated or been picked up, the food supply is completely safe and life is about to get back to normal.

Or at least that is what they want us all to know. The National Incident Command Report announced on August 2nd that they had calculated an “oil budget” widely interpreted to suggest that only 25% of the oil from the spill remained to be explained.

But is that realistic? What is the real story regarding the long term implications of this oil spill, that the White House and other spin doctors want us to know? The story has yet to be flushed out. There are stories, and there are stories.

Most scientists are scratching their heads trying to figure out why the truth is not being told in its entirety. Won’t people ever learn from past media mistakes? I would like to address just those media announcements from yesterday that place a damper on the implications of the Gulf oil disaster. How well I remember President Bush standing proudly on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier off the coast of San Diego with a “mission accomplished” sign in the background regarding the war in Iraq. How many police recruits were killed in Baghdad yesterday from a suicide bomber?

The National Institutes of Health is planning a $10 million study to track the long term health effects from the Deepwater Horizon oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Dale Sandler, an epidemiologist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) said yesterday that this NIH research project will prospectively track the health of more than 50,000 adult workers and volunteers who contributed to cleaning up the oil spill. The study will include pulmonary and neurological function tests, mental health monitoring, DNA damage analyses, as well as immunological assessments.

This National Institutes of Health project is tentatively being called The Gulf Workers Study. Direct monitoring of the health effects of the oil and chemicals used to disperse it will continue for several years.

Coincidently, a report by the Georgia Sea Grant and University of Georgia yesterday concluded that up to 79% of the oil released into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon Well has not been recovered and remains a threat to the ecosystem of the Gulf Coast. This report, that is authored by five prominent marine scientists, strongly contradicts information released to the press by the federal government that had suggested that only 25% of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill remained. Dr. Charles Hopkinson, Director of Georgia Sea Grant and Professor of Marine Sciences at the University of Georgia noted, "one major misconception is that oil that has dissolved into water is gone and therefore, harmless. The oil is still out there, and it will likely take years to completely degrade.” We are still far from a complete understanding of what its impacts are. 

Hopkinson says his group estimated how much of the oil could have evaporated, degraded or weathered as of August 2nd. Using a range of evaporable degradation estimates, a scientific team from the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography and the University of Georgia has calculated that 70-79% of the oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico still remains in the Gulf. They are adamant that is was impossible for all the dissolved oil to have evaporated because only oil at the surface of the ocean can evaporate into the atmosphere and large plumes of oil are trapped in deep water.

And then there is the most frightening of all of the reports – the one that was released from the University of South Florida yesterday. This study noted that oil has become toxic to marine organisms in a section of the Gulf of Mexico known as the DeSoto Canyon that supports the spawning grounds of commercially important fish species. Senior Scientist David Hollander noted that “the waters have a level of toxicity that needs to be recognized and I think these were some of the first indicators that the base of the food web -- the bacteria and the phytoplankton -- may be affected.” In the subsurface waters which were found east of the leaking wellhead, the phytoplankton, that appear to be more sensitive to the effects of oil than bacteria were found to be in poor health.

Gary Witman, MD

August 6, 2010

DrySphereTM and the Electrical Transformer Industry

Advances in the scientific laboratory are of greatest benefit when they achieve results capable of benefiting mankind. Now this may seem like a superfluous generalization, a thought to be swept away as bogus. But I truly believe it! Even the most basic of research has its greatest potential when it is able to achieve levels of application and benefit not even imagined during the time of development.

Today Dynamic Adsorbents is providing such a solution to the Electrical Transmission industry. We are offering the most powerful material to prolong the life of electrical transformers and help in assuring that the weakest link in the power grid, the electrical transformer, has the means to live up to its projected lifespan. Built ruggedly with withstand all weather conditions in an outside setting these power transformers are designed for a 50 year lifetime of service. Mother Nature is the culprit is able to shorten the lifespan of these transformers, with water being the instigator.

DAI DrySphereTM is the most powerful adsorbent material available commercially and it’s use is designed to dry up water and assure the long term viability of electrical transformers. This adsorbent product was developed to provide a solution for basic research work in liquid chromatography, and the result is a spin off benefit for the electrical generation industry. This is what I consider a great benefit – for basic science, for industry, and for the assurance of a reliable electrical delivery system for business and individuals.

Gary Witman, MD

July 30, 2010

Here We Go Again!

Dyna-Aqua Oil-SorbTM was developed as a novel and superior solution to address the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. We set out to create a means to pick up both surface and subsurface oil being released from the well, as well as being able to adsorb the toxic fumes and chemical surfactant intentionally released to alter the size of oil globules. What was not recognized by any of us was the sheer number of oil spills occurring on nearly a daily basis and how limited current solutions are in addressing these maritime needs.

There is no doubt that the media has helped to fuel attention on finding superior cleanup solutions. None of the newer technical advances were available to Exxon when Prince William Sound became the site of the Valdez oil spill in late March, 1989. In great part this calamity was the driving force for many of the advances in environmental cleanup and similarly solutions will be the outcome from the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

But look at the papers every day and there is a new spill. Last week it was the spill in the Yellow Sea off the coast of Northeast China. This week the accident is more than 1,000,000 gallons of oil which has spilled into the Kalamazoo River, a major waterway that flows into Lake Michigan, about 60 miles away. The leak came from a 30 inch pipeline built in 1969 that carries 8 millions gallons of oil daily from Griffith, Indiana to Sarnia, Ontario. Enbridge Energy Partners, which is the owner of the pipeline does not believe that the oil would reach the Great Lakes.

Have we heard this before? Already the oil has reached to Morrow Lake, a big lake which is near Kalamazoo, Michigan. The amount of boom placed on the Kalamazoo River now covers 28,000 feet. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm warns of a “tragedy of historic proportions” if the oil reaches Lake Michigan. The Environmental Protection Agency has now requested that the Coast Guard make $ 2 million available to fund the federal government’s operations in response to the spill and the Environmental Protection Agency will move additional vessels into the area within days to assist in the response.

Booms are great, but they are not the answer. There are newer and superior solutions and DAI is delighted to have one of them with our introduction of Dyna-Aqua Oil SorbTM. This technology provides a system combining the absorptive power of cotton with the adsorptive power of activated alumina and allows most of the recovered oil to be recycled.

July 29, 2010

China, as Your Economy Strengthens You Must Wake Up to Your Environmental Responsibilities

China is the world’s economic powerhouse. It has overtaken the United States as the greatest consumer of energy and its’ economic might is still roaring at full throttle. Your export strength and investment in infrastructure are the envy of the world. Great environmental sacrifices have been made in the name of economic progress. Now some of that money made for the sake of growth has to be poured back into cleanup up the environment. And China, this money has to be invested soon. For much like China sends it material goods overseas, so it sends its pollution overseas in the water, in the air and in the production of the enormous carbon footprint which is so heavily contributing to global warming and the deterioration of our entire planet.

The stories of pollution become more startling every day. A new government study released in China this week noted that in the Capitol City of Beijing air quality violated the World Health Organization standards more than 80% of the time during the last quarter of 2008. And this was occurred after the closure or relocation of many factories in order to provide good air quality for the Summer Olympic games. The report also stated that more than 25% of the countries’ rivers, lakes and streams were too contaminated to be used for drinking water. Due to the release of particulates from coal burning factories and power plants acid rain has become a major problem in nearly200 of the 440 cities where the Ministry of Environmental Protection monitors air quality.

As noted in the New York Times, state media in China have reported in the past two weeks on a pipeline explosion dumping thousands of gallons of oil into the Yellow Sea, the toxic effluent from a copper mine killing tons in fish in Fujian Province, and dozens of children being poisoned by lead from illegal gold production in Yunnan Providence.

The sad thing is that all of these problems are resolvable. How tragic and sad. We as well as other companies in the environmental cleanup business have solutions for all of these problems. Water purification, air scrubbers and heavy metal cleanup are all simple to achieve and affordable solutions are available which will not interfere at all with China’s commitment to full employment for rapid economic expansion. Sure the investment into environmental cleanup may keep from China from remaining a low cost producer, but that is small sacrifice when the failure to do so has such an impact on the health of its citizens and the well being of our entire planet.

Gary Witman, MD

July 25, 2010

Oil Spills Are Much More than Just the BP Disaster in the Gulf Coast

Accidents are inevitable even when safety guidelines are implemented. Oil spills into our water supply impact upon the entire food chain from micro-organism right on up to the largest aquatic mammals. While all attention in North America has focused on the Gulf of Mexico there is a disaster of similar proportions brewing in the Yellow Sea.

According to Chinese officials, an oil spill off the northeast coast of China has now expanded to 183 square miles. The disaster began last week in the port city of Dilian when an oil pipeline owned by the China National Petroleum Company exploded. Dilian is the 2nd biggest oil import port in China, and imported oil provides 20% of China’s energy requirement . Crude oil leaked into the Yellow Sea and then burned in a huge firestorm for 15 hours. China Central Television is estimating the size of the leak at 400,000 gallons of oil. Of note, Dilian was once named as China’s most livable city. Of note, the resort island of Bangchui which is east of Dalian in now barred to tourists.

Greenpeace China was able to take photographs at the environmental disaster before Government officials forced them to leave. Images send globally included showing oil slicked rocky beaches, a man covered in thick black sludge up to his cheekbones, and workers carrying colleagues covered in oil away from the scene. Zhong Yu, a worker with the environmental group noted “I’ve been to a few bays today and discovered they were almost entirely covered with dark oil. The oil is half-solid and half liquid and is as sticky as asphalt.”

The solution which the Chinese are using consists of placing down straw mats, measuring 2 square meters (21 square feet) which are being placed in the ocean to absorb the oil.

An official with the Jinshitan Golden Beach Administration Committee told the Beijing Daily Youth Newspaper “we don’t have proper oil cleanup materials, so our workers are wearing rubber gloves and using chopsticks…this kind of inefficiency means the oil will keep coming on shore…this stretch of oil is really difficult to clean up in the short term.”

In a region of the world where environmental cleanup remains lax the implications of Chinese petroleum demand attention. The International Energy Agency stated yesterday that China has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest energy consumer, using the equivalent of 2.252 billion tons of oil last year.

Rather than recommending new environmental guidelines, the official Chinese response was to question the accuracy of the figure released by the International Energy Agency.

There are better solutions than straw mats and chopsticks. Think Dynamic. Think ingenuity.

Gary Witman, MD

July 19, 2010

What Do You Guys Do Anyway?

Over the past 5 years you have become aware of the fact that we are purveyors of the finest silica and alumina based chromatographic quality adsorbents offered to the scientific community. But oh, we have become so much more.

Our efforts have been directed to building upon our manufacturing and research expertise and to stretch our products and services beyond the established scientific community. We provide specialty materials to a spectrum of commercial enterprises. This week Textile World is featuring some of our exciting new products in their feature article “Aluminated Textiles”. ” This article written by Managing Editor Janet Bealer Rodie highlights how DAI has transferred and embellished novel patented technology to create entirely new non-woven materials for the textile trade. It is our hope that this innovative direction will help to springboard and rejuvenate a part of the North American textile industry which has seen most of it’s manufacturing move “offshore.”

This is our mission and our pleasure. By providing novel and superior solutions to our manufacturing base we are helping to bring competitiveness back to North American commerce. That is what we guys do anyway.

Dr. Mark Moskovitz
Gary Witman, MD

July 15, 2010

Less Carbon Dioxide Emissions, No Need to Import Energy, What Could be Better?

An MIT Energy Initiative recently released has provided some striking and exciting figures regarding the immediate potential benefits by switching to natural gas to fuel our national power needs.

The amount of natural gas which is known to be retrievable amounts to 92 years worth at present domestic consumption rates. Much of this is entrapped in shale, and it must still be demonstrated that this gas can be collected. On a global scale the retrievable natural gas amounts to 16, 2000 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) which is enough to provide energy demands for 160 years at current consumption rates. As a point of reference the US consumption of gas is 22 Tcf annually, with a gas reserve thought to be in excess of 2,000 Tcf. The largest global gas reserves are in the United States, Russia and in the Middle East. Even Israel is getting into the game, with Noble Energy finding a huge gas reserve offshore in the Michal license, which should make Israel a net gas exporter in the next decade.

Great expansion of the pipeline and delivery system will be required to distribute these newly found sources of gas in the Northeast and Midwest. Furthermore, there will be significant environmental cleanup demands as major considerations need to be given to address shallow freshwater aquifer contamination with fracture fluids, surface water contamination by returned fracture fluids, excess demand on local water supply from fracturing operations and local community disturbance due to the drilling and fracturing activities.

DAI provides a spectrum of products to support this emerging demand for natural gas valves, pipelines and transport conduits. We address the desiccant requirements associated with gas hydrates by providing specialized activated alumina with the highest level of drying capacity.

There is only one way to substantiate our claims – by encouraging you to try it!

Gary Witman, MD

July 14, 2010

Sometimes I Just Don’t Get It, and One of Those Times is Now

There is such a paradox in the world of macroeconomics and sometimes I just do not get it. On the one hand I read in the press that the US Government is doing everything it can to encourage the export of domestically made manufactured goods as well as services. In the very next column I read that one of the most prestigious pharmaceutical companies is shedding 15,000 manufacturing jobs over the next 36 months in order to improve corporate profitability.

I understand that American companies are competing on a global market. I also understand that when it comes to manufacturing generic pharmaceuticals the speed, skills and output from Israeli, Indian and Chinese pharmaceutical manufacturers are tops, and candidly there is no way that American manufacturers are effectively able to compete in terms of pricing when it comes to the manufacture of generic drug compounds.

In order to constrain the costs of health care it is the goal of health care agencies to dispense generic agents as often as possible. In order to maximize profitability pharmaceutical manufacturers need to continue to develop exciting new compounds which offer advantages over existent technologies. Novelty is what should drive the creation of a “blockbuster” drug, one with the potential for generating more than a billion USD in annual sales.

So, one would think that pharmaceutical manufacturers would be ramping up their research and development staff, and actively looking for novel structures with unique mechanisms of action in order to discover the next blockbuster compound. But therein lies the paradox. For management is only able or willing to devote a defined portion of their annual budget to research – far, far less than the costs allocated to marketing. Even when drug agents go off patent and become generic far more is spent in marketing than in investing in the future and developing novel, dynamic compounds.

Think of drug development as infrastructure. Think of our pharmaceutical research labs as the bridges and tunnels and roads of our transport system. They are leaking and aging. At a time when American technology is losing is edge we should be investing more, not less into pharmaceutical research and development. The creation of manufacturing jobs in the pharmaceutical industry will only be sustained as major advances come out of our research laboratories.

Should federal funds be used to help prop up the pharmaceutical industry? Of course they already are. So many of the advances over the past 60 years have stemmed from grants through the R0 1 and PO 1 mechanisms under the auspices of the extramural program at the National Institutes of Health, and the competitive scores needed to obtain federal funding are getting tougher and tougher.

But perhaps it is time to rethink the process, and to think about the opportunities which may exist for exploring our habitat. The Gulf Oil spill should be turning on scientific light bulbs. What organisms dwell 5,000 feet down in the Gulf at those incredible pressures and ice cold temperatures. What novel lead compounds may be elicited from the micro-organisms dwelling in the Gulf? Should we not be spending more of our dollars on medicinal chemistry and looking for novel lead compounds before we destroy more of our environment? Should we not be investing more in marine biology, oceanography, plant sciences and microbial ecology? Was it not only 60 years ago that tuberculosis was rampant until Selman Waksman working at an agricultural station in New Jersey discovered streptomycin while studying actinomycetes and changed forever our approach to medicinal chemistry?

As I said above, sometimes I just don’t get it. At a time when there is a generalized retrenchment due to generics playing a more substantial role in pharmaceutical sales I must be the contrarian. I see it as the ripe time to invest more in research and development, and bring all of those smart minds back from the financial services industry and into doing good for all of mankind..

Gary Witman, MD

July 11, 2010

Just How Much Radioactive Waste is Around to Clean Up?

Matthew Wald writing in the July 11th national edition of the New York Times is owed a lot of gratitude for setting the figures straight. He has provided us with a straight forward analysis of the amount of plutonium waste generated by the Energy Department, the Atomic Energy Commission and the Manhattan Project, the World War II agency which was responsible for the production of atomic weaponry. The information which Mr. Ward published comes from 15 years of analytical work by Robert Alvarez, a former official with the US Department of Energy. The analysis by Mr. Alvarez has been accepted for publication later this year by the scholarly journal Science and Global Security from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.

The chief environmental concern from the Hanford, Washington nuclear production site is that plutonium can seep from stored underground sites into an underground area called the saturated zone and from there can enter the water supply of the Columbia River. And because plutonium has a radioactive half life of 24,000 years the long term implications are profound for hundreds of future generations of citizens living in the Pacific Northwest Region of the United States.

Mr. Wald quotes the following statement from Gerry Pollet, the Executive Director of the Environmental Group Hearth of America Northwest who states: “what is reasonably foreseeable is that there are people who will be drinking the water in the ground at Hanford at some point in the next few hundred years. We’re going to be killing people, pure and simple.”

Mr. Alvarez has re-analyzed the Department of Energy data regarding the amount of plutonium stored at Hanford, and has determined that there is enough plutonium buried to create 1,800 bombs the power of that which was dropped on the City of Nagasaki, Japan in 1945. The total amount of plutonium which was discarded as waste is 11,655 kilograms or three times as much as had previously been reported.

The implications of this radioactive waste assessment are enormous. From the perspective of environmental cleanup superior solutions must be achieved to be able to safely store and destroy plutonium waste. One solution is to place the contaminant in a solid form and shoot electric currents through the material in order to create a glass like structure.

Dynamic Adsorbents Inc. (DAI) has custom designed and provides wide pore specialty activated alumina materials capable of entrapping plutonium and other radioactive materials in a high density matrix. One entrapped the plutonium remains fixed through adsorption within these alumina particles making disposal secure and safe.

Environmental cleanup requires attention not just to our current needs, but the needs of future generations as well. The long half life of radioactive plutonium points towards the need for us to think about how we are impacting on our world.

Global warming is only the beginning of how we impact on Mother Earth.

Gary Witman, MD

July 2, 2010

Happy Independence Day

Dear Friends,

As we gather this Independence Day weekend with family, friends, neighbors and fellow citizens at parades, picnics and backyard barbeques, we recall the words of Thomas Jefferson in declaring America’s freedom, 234 years ago:

The unanimous Declaration of the 13 united States of America, “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”

Dr. Mark Moskovitz

July 1, 2010

Keep Bringing on Your Imagination and Creativity

I was not old enough to be raised at the time of Buck Rogers, rather I am from the Dick Tracy era. Incredible things, like TVs on wrist watches just mesmerized me. Creativity is sometimes just overbearing.

Every single day I am overwhelmed by the creativity of scientists contacting us at Dynamic Adsorbents elaborating on new and creative concepts for using our customized activated alumina compounds. Certainly demand for our product line originated from traditional organic chemistry indications and needs. Yet, over the last 36 months how we have seen the indications and needs for customized and specialized alumina grow!

Our marketing team believes that our corporate growth parallels the international level of interest in “going green”. For sure, energy and environmental concerns have helped to fuel the level of interest. But the creativity! The ideas! The excitement! It truly makes it a pleasure to come to work every single day with the knowledge that we will be speaking with leading scientists about ideas which remind one of Dick Tracy and Buck Rogers and all of the whacky, way out ideas which only days ago seemed like science fiction.

Gary Witman, MD

June 20, 2010

Heartwarming and Satisfying

As a manufacturer of high quality purification and sorbent products it is comforting, heartwarming and satisfying to see that our innovative technologies are becoming integrated into the mainstay scientific community. By seeking out our company name on computerized search engines it is gratifying to see that Dynamic Adsorbent products are increasingly being referenced in recently issued patents as well as being referenced and given credit in many peer reviewed publications. Why? We believe it is because our products are designed and manufactured to achieve the lot to lot consistency you demand. When a scientist purchases products from us they need to be comforted and guaranteed in the consistency of performance. Using fine quality sorbents removes one undesirable variable from any experimental design.

Look for us to be soon introducing more exciting and innovative products, backed up by the same level of technical support and quality control.

Gary Witman, MD

June 19, 2010

DAI fully and wholeheartedly endorses the Policy of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) regarding Use of Cotton and Cotton By-Products for Oil Spill Remediation

Dynamic Adsorbents fully endorses the policy statement of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers recommending the implementation of cotton for oil cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico. As noted in their policy statement “cotton and many cotton byproducts are much more efficient than synthetics in absorbing oil. Cotton fiber can absorb about 40 times its weight in oil, as compared to synthetics that currently absorb 10 to 20 times their weight. The oil absorbed by cotton along with the cotton itself will degrade naturally in the environment, which is not the case for synthetics. Additionally, cotton fiber and its fibrous byproducts can be reused to absorb additional oil.. unlike synthetic products like polypropylene, cotton will compost naturally and lead to bioremediation of absorbed oil“

Further, the ASABE Policy Statement goes on to note:

“Assuming an absorptive capacity of 50 times the weight of properly dispersed cotton fiber, a 500 pound bale of cotton fiber could absorb 25,000 pounds of oil (76 barrels of oil based on a specific gravity of 0.933). As of April 1, 2010 there were 8 million bales of cotton and cleaned lint clean waste in storage in the US.”

What are we waiting for? The challenge now lies in DAI and other innovative companies taking advantage of the obvious benefits of cotton, and to develop superior absorbent and adsorbent technologies.

That is what our name and charge are all about. We are Dynamic Adsorbents. We source the best materials. We create novel products. We are diligent in our efforts to take an environmental disaster and turn it into an opportunity. And most of all, we do not shirk responsibilities.

June 17, 2010

Ahoy, expect trouble from below for a long time to come

At DAI we continue to fine tune sorbent technologies to address the Gulf of Mexico oil spill coming out of the Deepwater Horizon well head. Environmental and marine scientists are providing us with updated knowledge regarding the magnitude of the problem. While our attention has been spent addressing the surface cleanup, there are problems deep below.

The research vessel F.G. Walton Smith sponsored by the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami is making some striking observations. This is an extraordinary vessel, as it is a 96 foot long catamaran with a draft of only 7 feet. This shallow draft enables it to explore previously inaccessible areas such as reefs, mangroves, grassbeds and other shallow environments. Studies on this vessel have found that there is an oil plume more than 24 kilometers long, 8 kilometers wide and 90 meters thick which stretches from 700 to 1300 meters below the surface south south west of the BP wellhead. This is travelling in a direction remote from the surface oil washing ashore along the coastline. Furthermore, a seasonal change in surface current flows, from the northeast to the southwest will take effect in August, meaning that the oil at this depth will remain in the Gulf of Mexico rather than travelling out in to the ocean.

Expect trouble from below for a very long time.

Dr. Gary Witman

June 15, 2010

Accidents Don't Happen in the Oil Industry?

The Captains of Industry are on Capital Hill today telling members of the House that the oil spill in the Gulf Coast last month was an aberration. They are resolute in their public statements that with careful attention to the tasks at hand that accidents and spills do not occur?

Who are they trying to kid? Even with vigilance to every safety issue accidents are bound to occur. We have been launching rockets into earth orbit for nearly 50 years, and even after thousands of such launches things go wrong, rockets explode, precious payloads are lost and precious lives end prematurely. This is the price paid with risky industrial endeavors. It is all a matter of a risk to reward ratio. The petroleum captains are attempting to make a convincing argument that deep water oil exploration and production are essential to the economy of our nation and of the world. And they are right. I only wish that they would make their presentation in a more humble and forthright way, rather than pointing fingers at the BP organization and saying that they were taking shortcuts. And I wish they would publicly recognize that 11 lives were unnecessarily lost because of this industrial accident.

Drilling more than a mile under the ocean and through three miles of rock to reach a petroleum source is taking our existent extraction technology to the fringes. We need to be prepared to protect ourselves from the consequences of such an environmental disaster. And we were not.

Dynamic Adsorbents (DAI) has worked these past five years to develop innovative products which address such environmental disasters. We are creating new textile products impregnating wide pore alumina which synergistically adsorb and absorb oil and toxic fumes. We are impregnating masks with materials to provide unheralded respiratory protection. We have designed and provide desiccant materials to prevent hydrates from forming ice crystals at oil wellheads. And we have developed an entire line of Dyna-AquaTM activated alumina materials demonstrated to clean up a spectrum of pollutants in our water systems – whether copper, or industrial dyes, or radioactive spillage, we have endeavored to develop a solution to clean them all.

We have limited resources, but an unlimited vision. We realize that even with the best of safety guidelines accidents will happen, and we must be prepared for them. Captains of Industry, to not try to say that an accident is an aberration. Admit that accidents can, do and will occur, insist that a means will be achieved to prevent them from occurring again, and work hard to assure that the impact of such an accident can be contained.

June 14, 2010

Are there more spills, or has environmental cleanup now become the focus of our media attention?

I wonder whether there are now more oil spills, or whether we are just focusing more of our attention on oil spills. I woke up this morning to hear the news about the terrible tragedy of an oil spill in Utah heading down toward the Great Salt Lake. The press reported that a 10 inch pipe carrying crude petroleum for Chevron Oil leaked oil into Red Butte Creek, and that the oil had reached the Jordan River and was continuing down to the Great Salt Lake. This 10 inch wide pipe was leading underground near Red Butte Garden by the University of Utah and came from their Colorado pipeline running down Emigration Canyon and heading west over Beck Street in Salt Lake City to the company refinery.

Local parks will be closed for weeks. Because of a rapid response by Chevron the environmental impact of this leak will be contained. Chevron vacuum trucks quickly began to pump water from the effected ponds, transporting the crude oil to a local Chevron refinery in Salt Lake City.

A leak in Utah is a bit different that one along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. When crude oil reaches into the Great Salt Lake there is nowhere for it to go. The Lake is a lake, and self contained. That crude oil does not go away. It remains. And once entered into the food chain it creates havoc.

The solutions are simple. Vigilance. Safety. Superior clean up measures. We at Dynamic Adsorbents are opting for the latter solution, designing and refining superior clean up measures. Accidents are inevitable. They are part of business and even with the best in surveillance and monitoring oil leaks and pipe disruptions are inevitable. Our goal is to make sure that when such an accident does occur an affordable, simple to implement solution is available to damper the environmental impact.

Gary Witman, MD

June 13, 2010

If They Build It Will They Come?

So much has been made and will continue to be made about the oil spill in the Gulf Coast. Regardless of ones thoughts regarding the spill it is crucial to accept that petroleum products are essential and their contribution to our modern society is not going away very soon.

However, newer technologies are coming on stream. This is the year that mass produced battery powered vehicles will be reaching mainstream America. This week Daimler Benz introduced Smart minicards to the United States running exclusively on batteries. In just a few months the General Motors Chevrolet Volt and the Nissan Leaf will be rolling off assembly lines and into the garages of thousands of American families. The Nissan Leaf is an all electric vehicle with a travel range of approximately 100 miles, more than enough to handle the commuter needs of most Americans. The Chevrolet Volt runs on battery power for about 40 miles at which point an internal combustion engine back up power supply kicks in.

Lithium will fuel the batteries which run these vehicles. We at Dynamic Adsorbents are working to maximize domestic lithium sourcing by improving the purity of refined lithium, reducing the need for importing costly petroleum and reducing the balance of payment deficits which impact on the lifestyle of all Americans.

How will these batteries be recharged? The recharging of the batteries will require plugging vehicles into either a 110 or 220 volt power source and getting power back out from the electric power grid. The introduction of electric cars is being compared to the mass electrification of kitchens and laundries in the 1950’s and the subsequent wide spread use of air conditioning in the 1960’s and 1970’s. It is not felt at the present time that the widespread introduction of battery powered vehicles will have an immediate impact on the electric demands of the power grid. Ideally the batteries would be recharged at night, when there is a lower power demand on the electric grid. It is hoped that power companies would provide consumers with an incentive to recharge their batteries during off-peak hours. The utility industry may be able to further encourage the conversion to battery powered vehicles by holding down the cost of battery recharging, providing a further incentive for drivers to “make the switch.”

So now it is time to wait and see. If they build battery powered cars will the consumer readily accept this disruptive technology? Are Americans so tired of seeing their environment impacted by oil spills that they would be willing to willingly give up their internal combustion engines and switch over to battery powered vehicles, which promise no compromise in performance? We will be able to see soon enough if they will come if they build it. Good luck General Motors. Good luck Nissan. You have been the innovators. To the victors go the spoils.

Gary Witman, MD

June 3, 2010

Energy Companies, We Are Looking Out for Your Blind Side

Energy companies, just like it is described by the Canadian national anthem “we stand on guard for thee.” The oil spill in the Gulf Coast is an unprecedented national environmental disaster. This is not the time to put blame on anyone, or press legal or criminal charges. There is plenty of time for the lawyers and the ambulance chasers to worry about such litigative issues in the future. Now is the time to race and find solutions, both to cap off the well as well as to prevent the consequences of this pressing environmental catastrophe.

We are working diligently to find a solution. We are working with our corporate strategic partner Hobbs Bonded Fiber, Inc. of Waco, TX, to rapidly develop an alumina impregnated cotton material which both exceeds an oil sorption capacity of greater than 50 grams per gram as fiber, as well as achieving the means to prevent the fumes and consequent respiratory complications of aerosolized hydrocarbon release.

Other energy solutions are being proposed and pushed as alternatives. Proton Energy and SunHydro took out a full page advertisement in the June 3, 2010 edition of the New York Times proclaiming “In the Time It takes to Clean up the Disaster in the Gulf…. Hydrogen Can Make Gasoline a Fuel of the Past”

We at Dynamic Adsorbents fully anticipate that hydrogen will become one of the attractive alternative sources of energy for running our domestic car fleet. We have designed DrysphereTM alumina spheres for use in “point of use pump” filters to keep water and other liquid condensates from reaching the fuel line, thus assuring superior performance from engine components.

So either way, with oil or novel hydrogen energy sourcing we will have you covered. “We stand on guard for thee”.

Dr. Gary Witman

June 1, 2010

Is BP truly on the way to arresting the Gulf Coast calamity?

Thank you Secretary Chu for having BP stop throwing ground up golf balls and other “mud” components into the billowing oil and gas spill one mile down at the bottom of the Gulf Coast. Enough is enough. All of this experimentation is being done at the expense of the environment as well as at the expense of the hundreds of thousands of people who make their livelihoods from the bounties of the Gulf Coast.

So now BP engineers and scientists have gone back to the drawing board, and are looking for novel solutions to make the concept of the containment dome work. At least they are on the right track, and eventually one hopes that they will find the right solution.

Crystalline formation from gas hydrates obstructed the outflow and was the limiting factor in the design of the containment dome. Now the solution which the BP engineers have improvised delivers hot liquid a mile down to the depth of the ocean floor in an attempt to keep the gas hydrates from turning solid and crystallizing. This sounds like a keen engineering feat to perform and it will be virtuous to accomplish this task. You are at least on your way to achieving a solution BP, now that your engineers have appropriately identified the problem.

Perhaps in the future you will come to recognize the benefits of using the highest quality adsorbents to retard crystalline hydrate formation. Certainly, the use of activated alumina desiccants such as DrysphereTM should become a part of your back up plan. The cost to acquire this technology may be more than the costs of purchasing ground up golf balls, but then again, at what cost? Look what has occurred already as other Rube Goldberg ideas were attempted and then abandoned.

Dr. Gary Witman

May 23, 2010

Living Downstream

There is nothing more powerful than visual impact. A picture is worth a thousand words. I was riveted by the visual message of a new film “Living Downstream” from the written work of Dr. Sandra Steingraber. A good deal of this environmental documentary focuses on the impact of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Though outlawed for most usage by regulatory mandate more than 30 years ago, this film reveals that the carcinogenic impact throughout the food chain is overwhelming.

We have put a lot of effort into finding an effective and affordable solution for PCP cleanup. We have developed and support a corporate sponsored website pcbremoval.net where we attempt to provide timely and unbiased information regarding the cleanup needs and solutions for this category of chemicals.

It is not enough to say that PCPs are no longer manufactured, so don’t worry about them. They continue to haunt us. Living Downstream does a very good job of showing us how. If you are fortunate enough to live in a community where this film is going to be shown take advantage of the opportunity and go see it.

Gary Witman, MD

May 23, 2010

Is Environmental Consciousness a Moving Force That Changes our Style of Life?

I live in an urban, liberal leaning setting in New England. People in my neighborhood are not movers and shakers, but they are very, very sensitive to the environment. Two months ago many of us were immersed in up to 10 feet of water. In my region the AMTRAK tracks were immersed under 4 feet of water, and Interstate 95 was closed for days, shutting down most commerce between New England and the rest of the country. Many of us have yet to recover from that calamity and it will take years until the bridges and roadbeds are repaired.

Watching similar floods hit Nashville but a stab into our hearts and how we could feel for the people of central Tennessee. But nothing is as shocking as the sites that come to us every day from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. For in Louisiana the food chain will be impacted by the oil spill for years to come. Who knows what the estuaries will look like?

What are my neighbors thinking and doing? They are waiting to buy electric cars, or for those who cannot wait they are purchasing hybrids. Those who have previously purchased home heating oil to fuel their homes are running to get hooked onto the natural gas power grid.

My neighbors just do not want us to have to go seek deep sea underwater oil exploration. They believe that if the demand for oil dries up, then the need to find this oil and along with it the environmental risks will go away.

Of course we in an urban liberal setting in New England are just a microcosm. But my neighbors simply say that if it does not start here it will not start at all. Time will tell if they are right, and if environmental consciousness is a moving force which can change our style of life.

We at Dynamic will continue to develop superior alumina based desiccants which will make the delivery of natural gas, the safer and cleaner alternative energy source, easier and more convenient for you to use.

Gary Witman, MD

May 17, 2010

Sustainable environmental needs

The series of calamities which have occurred this spring may appear unprecedented but they are not. Mining disasters in West Virginia. The calamitous oil spill off of the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf. Certainly there is a continual need for energy, and for fossil based fuels. Our country and our world needs such fossil fuels to support the life style to which we have all grown accustomed, and we clamor for these fuels. But at what cost? Is there not an acceptable compromise? Why can’t we develop foolproof guidelines and provide sustainable environmental controls to avoid such mishaps.

Dynamic Adsorbents is committed to achieving such sustainable controls. We have offered to British Petroleum as well as to the entire natural gas industry our alumina based DrysphereTM  desiccant which prevents the buildup of gas hydrate crystals such as the materials which prematurely ruined the ability of the undersea Containment Dome to trap the oil and gas emanating from the broken BP pipeline. We are working on buffer systems which can capture oxides being released from coal burning power generators. And with sufficient resources it is our goal to work on carbon capture technology which may help address concerns regarding global warming.

We realize that we are but one small link in one small cog which makes up the wheel of scientific endeavor tackling demanding environmental issues. But take heart. Problems are being addressed, and solutions will be achieved to reduce such environmental calamities. And in our lifetime.

Gary Witman, MD

May 8, 2010

Will They Listen? DAI Offers Free DrysphereTM to Address Gas Hydration Problem with Oil Spill.

Dynamic Adsorbents has offered to the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center (BP) a means to be able to address the gas hydrate problem that has been encountered on the dome structure placed over the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. We have offered DrysphereTM  desiccant free of charge, as a courtesy to provide a solution for this dire environmental problem. Will they listen? Is there going to be a problem with NIH (Not invented here?) All the technical staff at DAI can do is provide our technical expertise and our resources. We fear for our coastline. We fear for the future of the Gulf. If we can in some small way help to offer a solution to this environmental tragedy we will be delighted. We are not aware of any other desiccant material providing such superior drying of gas hydrates.

The next step is yours BP.

Gary Witman, MD

April 28,2010

“Off The Record” - From China

While in Shanghai this past week I had the opportunity to meet with a senior member of the Chinese Government. Of course I was told that information which was imparted to me was “off the record.”

China believes that in order to continue to achieve its torrid pace of development it is essential to prioritize national goals for economic development. In the next two 5 year plans the following three areas will drive growth:

  • tourism

  • infrastructure development

  • environmental cleanup

This official stated that explosive economic growth in China could not have been achieved in China if environmental concerns had been a priority. Now that the country has achieved some financial security, it is turning its attention to the environmental disasters it created in the name of progress. Only now is China able to look back and question the benefits and liabilities in building the Three Gorges Dam. At the time of conception, the only concern that the Chinese government had was in providing enough in the way of power to satisfy the electrical thirsts of heavy industry.

We can do our small part at Dynamic to help China clean up the environment. Take for example the textile industry. China has become the dominant force in the textile industry and in the manufacture of industrial dyes. For now waste water is discharged in effluent streams at toxic levels. Ambitious Chinese goals include having the textile trade return spent effluent in a potable state to the water system. Dynamic decolorization alumina, coupled with other Dyna-AquaTM materials should prove useful in providing to the Chinese people high quality water – something that everyone can savor.

Dr. Gary Witman

April 22, 2010

Happy Earth Day

While many people throughout the word reinforce their appreciation of and commitment to improving the environment today, we at DAI are proud to continue reinforcing our mission of finding the best, most cost-effective solutions for many of the environmental threats facing our world.

Many of our unique, specialized, and customized aluminas are targeted to dealing with some of the most pressing environmental cleanup issues facing our planet, including removal of pcbs, removal of toxic metals from water, and drying of gases and other liquids for cleaner energy and other applications.  Our "highest quality in the industry" alumina provides the best, most cost-effective solutions for the widest range of environmental cleanup and other applications in the industry.

Since the beginning, our goal has been to find the best solutions to protecting people's health and safety, not just sell products off the shelves. We look forward in the years ahead to joining with other companies to provide a cleaner, healthier environment for people throughout the world, and developing new products and solutions towards that end.

Thank you for all of your support.

The DAI team

April 13, 2010

To All Our New Customers and Established Customers A Most Gracious Thank You

We love to see where the orders at DAI come in from. Santiago. Monterey. San Diego. Seoul. Cambridge. New Haven. Montreal. Singapore. Miami. Every Day we learn of separation scientists throughout the world taking up on our offer to try at no cost activated alumina in order to improve their purification abilities. What is so satisfying to us is that many of you sourcing these samples come back and order and reorder and reorder. We are able to turn skeptics into satisfied customers.

This is how we are building a business. One satisfied customer at a time. And often that customer tells others and a word of mouth network begins.

We promise to listen to you. We are here to address solutions to your needs.
As separation scientists we are building a business based on providing solutions. Our technical expertise lies in providing you with answers, not just off the shelf products.

Dr. Mark Moskovitz
Dr. Gary Witman

April 12, 2010

India's Reliance Industries and Natural Gas

Energy needs and energy solutions are global. I have written about the need for America to become secure in its energy requirements by taking advantage of existent resources. Certainly President Obama made a lot of hoopla last week when he announced that large scale drilling for oil and gas would begin off the eastern seaboard of the United States, much to the chagrin of many environmentalists and some politicians.

An equally important story has received considerably less coverage, but carries with it significant implications. India’s Reliance Industries, according to a story written by Joe Leahy and Sheila McNulty and published in the Financial Times will joint venture with Atlas Energy to develop 580,000 acres owned by Atlas in the Marcellus Shale gas formation. The Marcellus Shale straddling Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York is estimated to hold enough natural gas to meet the entire North American demand for a decade. It covers an area of 65,000 square miles, which if put into perspective is larger than the nation of Greece.

Technical advances in gas drilling have increased the estimates of US gas reserves from 30 years to 100 years by providing means to reach previously unavailable and untappable resources.

So who is Reliance? This Indian company operates the world’s biggest refinery complex in a single location in India as well as India’s largest gas field. The company will provide an economy of scale as well as technical expertise to an expanding natural gas drilling operation in the Northeast states.

Couple this with the intent of the Chinese to bring capital and expertise in high speed rail systems and one gets the sense that there is an invasion of enthusiasm, money and technical knowledge for us here in North America.

To which I say welcome! I hope that along with your money and your expertise you bring a degree of respect for the environment which many domestic operators have long ignored, as demonstrated by the tragedy in West Virginia this past week.

At DAI, providers of DrysphereTM, the superior desiccant for drying of petroleum and natural gas products we look forward to your enthusiasm and “go to” attitude.

Dr. Gary Witman

March 31, 2010

Our Superior and Unique Adsorbent Provides the Means to Export our Knowledge and Know-How, and Create Jobs for American Workers

DAI only company offering specially designed 50 micron activated alumina to address textile wastewater effluent

President Obama has been dogmatic in proclaiming that one national goal is to double our ability as a nation to export goods and services. Easier said than done. Mature manufacturing companies all over the world have caught up with North America in terms of technology and manufacturing skills. There are few places where we hold a competitive edge anymore. Defense technologies, financial services and the life sciences remain those areas where we hold a recognized technical and competitive edge.

Another neglected area where North Americans hold a technical edge is in the environmental sciences. As countries undergoing rapid economic expansion destroy their environment and deplete natural resources, they begin to examine the consequences of their economic policies. China has done much to address issues regarding the quality of air, soil and water and other nations in Asia and Latin America will follow.

Dynamic Adsorbents is doing its part too. One of our most fascinating and unique products is a spinoff from scaling up procedures used by the pharmaceutical industry in the production of plant alkaloids for the treatment of breast and ovarian cancer. The taxane compounds taxol and taxotere are isolated from parts of the Pacific Yew tree, and specialized activated alumina compounds were developed to expedite this purification process. Through extensive trial the best activated alumina for taxane isolation and purification was found to be a wide pore material with an average dp50 particle distribution of 50 microns.

Unbeknownst to us at the time while developing this activated alumina product for cancer drug development, a solution was found that enhances wastewater treatment for the textile and other dye producing industries. Specialty activated alumina available only from DAI provides a superior solution for the decolorization of dyes.

Due to the availability of low cost labor elsewhere, most textile manufacturing has now gone to other parts of the world, and while we cannot bring these manufacturing jobs back to North America, we can export the clean-up technology making the environment safer where these jobs have gone. Here we have a technical edge. By providing a superior and unique adsorbent, we have the means to export our knowledge and know-how and create jobs for American workers.

In so doing we will be doing our share to export our goods and technologies and help to make the world a cleaner place. Further information regarding our unique product can be found in the article Utilization of Specialized Activated Alumina for Decolorization written by Dr. Mark Moskovitz and Dr. Gary Witman.

Gary Witman, MD

March 19, 2010

How Could I Have Forgotten to Rant About Cadmium?

After a 2008 law implemented in the United States imposed limits on lead usage in products for children some manufacturers in China turned to cadmium as a substitute. This heavy metal is a known carcinogen which causes end stage renal disease among its untoward effects. Testing of 103 children’s trinkets purchased in a store revealed that 12 of them contained at least 10% cadmium by weight. Some of the trinkets contained upwards of 84-91% cadmium by weight.

Health Canada has now gotten into the act, raising concerns regarding the content of both lead and cadmium in children’s toys.

We at DAI don’t enter the picture until far later – when these trinkets are disposed, and the next thing you know these toxic metals are floating around in our surface and drinking water. But we need to safeguard our children. The actions of these selfish manufacturers are reprehensible, but there is no one on site in China to police these actions. We must monitor with vigor the importation of all products which have the potential to do as much harm as good.

Gary Witman, MD

March 17, 2010

Can Alumina Provide a Safe and Continuous Drug Delivery System?

The power of alumina adsorbents continues to amaze me. Now, an incredibly innovative application is being developed which may offer a major improvement for the diabetic population. One of my closest friends has been a patient at the Mayo Clinic for the past month receiving treatment for the complications of his ischemic feet. He may require amputations if a means cannot be achieved to increase blood flow to the smaller blood vessels in his left foot.. His circulation is good, but not his microcirculation. For many diabetic patients the options for treatment of vascular ischemia have consisted of gangrene, or partial amputation. At the Mayo he is receiving hyperbaric oxygen for two hours a day.

Liu and Balkus at the University of Texas, Dallas may just have developed a superior idea. They embed fibers of zeolite, an aluminosilicate, with fibers of polylactic acid subsequently infused with nitric oxide. Apparently, by controlling the porosity of the fibers, it is possible to control the release of the nitric oxide gas.

I had the honor of personally studying under the late Robert Furchgott, the Nobel Prize winning biochemist and former chairman of the Department of Pharmacology at SUNY-Downstate Medical Center. Dr. Furchgott won his Nobel laureate for working out the mechanism of action of nitric oxide as well as nitric oxide delivery. How Dr. Furchgott would have loved to learn that such a product as envisioned by these Texan scientists could be incorporated for example into socks for diabetics delivering nitric oxide through the skin, and increase the circulation to diabetics and improve their quality of life.

How gratifying I will find it if activated alumina can indeed be woven into a material which will form a safe and continuous drug delivery system.

And for my friend at the Mayo Clinic, the cavalry is on its way!

Gary Witman, MD

March 13, 2010

Is There Nothing Sacred Any More?

This afternoon I received an alert from the Food and Drug Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program regarding counterfeit flat sheets of polypropylene surgical mesh, used in the repair of hernias and chest wall defects. These products are being marketed in the United States under the CR Bard/Davol brand names, and they are not Bard manufactured products. Now we as physicians are being asked to carefully examine all manufacturers’ polypropylene surgical mesh products for “anything unusual which might indicate they are counterfeit”

It would be appalling if the first sign of a counterfeit product would be the herniation of a chest wall defect and the eventration of vital organs.

Where is there honesty and integrity anymore? Are the life sciences just another business to exploit?

We at Dynamic Adsorbents certainly don’t look at business in this fashion. We do not take the short cuts that you may see from other vendors, who you as consumers may find to be more competitive in pricing. But do you ever wonder why?

Gary Witman, MD

March 12, 2010

If We are Good to Mother Nature, She will be Good to US - The Importance of Natural Plant and Marine Alkaloids

It has been around 200 years since Friedrich Sertimer, a 21 year pharmacy apprentice isolated the first pharmacologically active pure compound from a plant. This compound was morphine, which was isolated from opium produced by the cut seed pods of the poppy plant Papaver somniferum. The real discovery explosion to identify drug agents from the environment began after the isolation of penicillin, and by 1990 nearly 80% of the drugs in clinical usage were either natural products or analogs of natural products. And natural products continue to play a major role in drug development, despite advances in medicinal chemistry. Between 2005 an 2007 13 natural product drugs were approved by the FDA in the United States, with 5 of these drugs being members of new classes.

What a shame if mankind were to destroy the very salvation of health care needs.! It has been stated that 15,000 out of 50,000 to 70,000 medicinal plant species are currently threatened by extinction. Before this extinction occurs, genetic markers should be obtained providing scientists with a clue of what we may be missing with sustained global warming and acidification of the oceans.

As for the marine environment, we as scientists are only now beginning to comprehend the magnitude of opportunity for the isolation and identification of novel drug agents. Bugni and colleagues at the University of Utah recognized that natural product libraries are attractive for drug discovery, and have developed a technique and method to produce high purity natural product libraries for high throughput screening and phenotype selective screens. They have developed a two dimensional chromatographic strategy that includes an automated HPLC-Mass Spect fractionation protocol to general natural product libraries that are sufficiently pure for high throughput screening (HTS). Marine invertebrate specie extracts are desalted, with solid phase extraction. Monolithic columns were used for HPLC analysis. The final fraction is directed into a 96 well format with each well being mapped to a Mass Spect chromatogram. These medicinal chemists believe that the methodology has the potential to eliminate bioassay guided fractionation.

Natural plant and increasingly marine alkaloids will continue to provide the lead for new medicinal compounds, as long as we provide these organisms which have evolving over hundreds of millions of years the chance to continue to thrive in their environments.

Gary Witman, MD

March 10, 2010

Lithium as Our Primary Energy Source

All the energy which this country requires lies in this hemisphere. There is no need to import oil or other petrochemical agents from the Middle East.

Bold comment, no?

Take a look at the newspapers for today March 10, 2010. They tell a startling story. Chevron laying off 2000 employees. An article by Jonathan White in the Wall Street Journal stating that by 2050 there could be two billion cars on the road, and 40% of them could be electric! That is a statement by Peter Voser, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell PLC. It is meant to be! Over one half of the world’s lithium output lies in Argentina and Chile.

Toyota Motor Company announced plans a few weeks ago to develop a $100 million lithium project at the Olaroz salt lake in Argentina along with Orocobre Ltd of Australia. Analysts believe that Chile and Argentina may contain sufficient reserves of lithium to fuel the power needs of our world at current consumption demands for millions of years. The largest lithium in the world, which remains commercially untapped is located at the Uyuni salt lake in Bolivia.

The largest investor in the lithium based battery technology for Coda Automotive is China National Offshore Oil Corp, the big Chinese government oil company, which is investing heavily in electric vehicle battery technology.

The global demand for lithium is increasing by more than 20% annually, with an even further ramp up anticipated as demand for this power source becomes essential for powering laptops, digital cameras, cell phones and computers, and as lithium becomes the prime energy source for motor vehicles. An additional benefit in switching to lithium as a power source lies in the reduction of the carbon footprint, thereby dramatically alter the pace of global warming as well as emissions of sulfur dioxides and carbon dioxides. Add in the fact that lithium stores three times more energy per pound as a nickel metal hybrid battery and the additional features which DAI provides and lithium proves a winner.

We at DAI are so excited about these advances. There is no better, safer or cleaner way to extract lithium from the ground than through the use of DAI’s high quality specially defined activated alumina adsorbents consisting of defined and characterized wide pore sizes. We are not aware of any superior or more cost effective method to extract or purify lithium than through the use of specially designed and characterized DAI activated alumina.

We look forward to working with global leaders in lithium extraction in order to help reduce our dependency on oil as our prime source of energy. And as for the petrochemical industry take note – we are here to serve you when you take your heads out of the sand.

Gary Witman, MD

March 3, 2010

Inadequate Monitoring of the Dietary Supplement Industry

A recent article in the Archives of Internal Medicine highlights one of the pitfalls of inadequate monitoring of the dietary supplement industry. Selenium levels more than 200 fold higher than those listed on product labeling were contained in one dietary supplement liquid, leading to toxic level exposure in over 200 individuals. I have recorded these findings in my article “More Carefully Scrutiny Encouraged for Purification and Quantitative Testing of Nutritional Supplements” which can be found here.

Gary Witman, MD

February 2, 2010

Dynamic's Role in Stopping China from Winning the Green-Tech War

In the February 8th edition of Fortune Magazine there is an excellent piece by Brian Dumaine entitled "Will China Win the Green-Tech War?"

Not if Dynamic Adsorbents can help it!

But we are a small company -- what can be done to stop China from “winning the war”?

A lot!!

Every day the DAI team is working on solutions that will allow America to remain at the forefront of the green revolution.

DrysphereTM, when used as directed, is the world’s best desiccant. Well characterized, it provides the best means to dry up industrial gases and is an answer for point of use and point of delivery enhancement of hydrogen fuels. Hydrogen may become an important source of energy for powering transportation.

Superior methods for scrubbing out nitrous and sulfur dioxides are essential for clean coal. While no method of cleaning coal is fool-proof, the coal supply in the United States may provide a means for power generation for the next 200 years.

With burial of nuclear fuels at Yucca Mountain now dead, attention is being refocused on the collection of spent nuclear materials for reuse. Our Dyna-AquaTM Uranium can clean up low grade nuclear waste found in groundwater, surface water and surface soils. This soaked up waste can then potentially be safely destroyed or reused. Assuring that low grade nuclear materials do not get into the environment will allow nuclear energy to again be considered as an additional source for electricity production to fuel America.

By designing specialized activated alumina, Dynamic will be at the forefront in the use of new high density lithium batteries, with the lithium packed tightly into alumina spheres increasing density and shrinking the size of the batteries.

We welcome the chance to team up with other innovators in ensuring that in the short and long run, we can remain at the technical forefront and generate the jobs to keep the green revolution here in North America.

Gary Witman, MD

January 29, 2010

We make our adsorbents fit your applications, not your applications fit our adsorbents

This is the mission statement of our company. Simple in concept, rational in scope and critical to you as a separation scientist. We do more that produce the best adsorbents. We ourselves are separation scientists, and recognize the issues that you address day in and day out.

This company was founded because of a commercial void in the separation science community. There was a need to work with scientists to provide the best separation solution. Finding separation answers led to our designing the new Dyna-AquaTM line of products and to refining the techniques for modifying surface, particle distribution, and pore sizes using activated alumina.

We welcome your calls. Almost daily we receive calls from separation scientists at the collegiate, university or industrial level of people who are having problems with their current adsorbents. They purchased from other vendors based on price. Often they have obtained an adsorbent manufactured overseas at what was a terrific price. However once they use the product they find that it is filled with fines, heavy metals, other contaminants, or that it breaks down in an acidic or basic pH setting or that it cannot withstand the temperatures demanded for superior performance.

These calls are the mainstay of the business. We never take an “I told you so” approach. All of us have been tempted by pricing as a primary consideration when acquiring adsorbents. Aren’t they approaching a commodity item? Shouldn’t we be able to purchase alumina and silica in an interchangeable fashion based on pricing alone?

I go back to our mission statement – we make our adsorbents fit your applications, not your applications fit our adsorbents.

Spend some time with our staff. You may be very pleasantly surprised by the results of your endeavor.

Dr. Mark Moskovitz

January 19, 2010

DAI's Unique Ability to Modify Alumina for Specific Applications

If you follow the growth of our company then you realize how passionate we are about the use of alumina for purification in the separation sciences – this includes the spectrum of pharmaceutical, industrial, environmental, nutraceutical and just plain basis research. We just love to play with and manipulate activated alumina. We modify it, reshape it and alter particle and pore size – in fact, you could think of us as molecular metallurgists!

In our commitment to our loyal client base it our promise to continually expand our product line. We have listened to your feedback and wish to address your most pressing needs. In the very near future we will be announcing the offering of a superior 1 micron sized activated alumina particle for ultra high pressure, high resolution separations. Pumps and columns are now available to utilize this exciting new Dynamic product. Until now the limiting factor has been the adsorbent. Soon all of this will change.

What else is on the horizon for this year? New materials will be entering the marketplace to address your proteinomic purification requirements. New biocides bound to activated alumina and integrated with non-woven fiber materials for extremely broad anti-infective applications.

Our ideas are boundless. One by one we will deliver these exciting new solutions to you.

Dr. Mark Moskovitz

January 15, 2010

Help for Haiti

Like the rest of the business community, we at DAI feel strongly for the people of Haiti in their desperate time of need. We are in contact with officials to donate technology and supplies to assist with their water purification and other needs, and urge all businesses and individuals to do what they can to assist Haitian earthquake victims, and the people and organizations attempting to assist them. Below you will find the many organizations offering assistance, with direct links to donate, in addition to the link below from the Whitehouse.

Help for Haiti: Learn What You Can Do

Whatever all of us can do will be extremely helpful and your support will be greatly appreciated.

Dr. Mark Moskovitz

January 11, 2010

DAI's Product Line Expansion

2010 is starting off with a bang, and the entire management team and support staff at DAI are most grateful. Over the course of the past three years we have continued to expand our line of high quality products for the separation sciences and the pharmaceutical and environmental science industries. How successful are we becoming? In the first week of this year we have done 15 x more in sales than we achieved in the entire month of January just three days ago. In part this sales success is a reflection of the expansion of the Dynamic product line. Even more importantly our loyal client base has continued to expand the use of our products and our client base continues to expand.

I plan to be available to speak with many of you in Orlando next month (Feb. 28 - March 5) at PITTCON. Please reach me at the office number (770 817-0123) so that I may arrange a suitable time to discuss your separation needs.

Mark Moskovitz, Ph D

January 1, 2010

Dynamic and PCB Removal

2009 proved to be a banner year for awareness regarding the hazards associated with the production, usage and disposal of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). While now banned for decades, these useful synthetic compounds were incorporated into much more than power transformers – 30 years ago they found their way into building materials, schools and were immersed without concern of long term impact into our environment. Only now do we comprehend the ubiquitous nature of these compounds. Exciting data from Labrador and published this month in the Toronto Globe and Mail point to an environmental solution for destroying these toxic agents. Meanwhile the utility of activated alumina for rapid and complete PCB cleanup remains unheralded.

DAI sponsors pcbremoval.net, a website where unbiased timely articles from the lay and scientific press are presented regarding the role of pcb compounds in our environment and multiple clean up approaches which are being used for their eradication. Throughout the year the company will be sponsoring additional websites which will address the role and impact of environmental cleanup.

Affordable solutions are available to make our world a cleaner place to live.  At Dynamic Adsorbents, 2010 will be a year where we continue making advances in the use of alumina for not just environmental cleanup applications, but protecting citizens throughout the world from viral and bacterial health hazards.

Dr. Gary Witman

December 27, 2009

Dynamic Update - Looking back and ahead

As we get to the end of this calendar year it is time for introspection. Did we do well this year? Are we happy with our performance? Have we helped to make the world a better place?

Simple questions, but oh so profound in their implications. It is our hope that we have added to the education process by creating a chapter on Flash Chromatography for Jack Kazes masterpiece compilation “Encyclopedia of Chromatography, 3rd Edition”. What a wonderful addition of scholarship this work has become.

We continue to acquire patent protection for intellectual property to develop exciting new products that will keep us in the forefront of cleaning our air, soil and water.

New websites initiated by the company are exposing readers all over the world to disruptive and exciting novel solutions for cleaning up our environment. It is comforting to know that our ideas are being disseminated globally.

We are placing a great deal of emphasis on our means to manipulate activated alumina in ways that have not been addressed before and continue setting the standard regarding how alumina is being used. By altering the structure, the pore size and the particle size we are finding solutions for superior drying agents, pollution control systems, filtration systems, pesticide, pyrogen and toxic waste cleanup, and novel solutions for the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries.

We have accomplished much this calendar year. And this is only the beginning. Happy New Year to everyone.

Mark Moskovitz, PhD

December 18, 2009

New York Times: Lack of Regulation for Most Chemicals in Water

The New York Times got it right this week in their first page articles about the quality of the water supply in the United States. According to their latest article, "Only 91 contaminants are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, yet more than 60,000 chemicals are used within the United States, according to Environmental Protection Agency estimates. Government and
independent scientists have scrutinized thousands of those chemicals in recent decades, and identified hundreds associated with a risk of cancer and other diseases at small concentrations in drinking water, according to an analysis of government records by The New York Times. But not one chemical has been added to the list of those regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act
since 2000."

A healthy, safe environment is not just about attempting to reduce carbon  dioxide emissions in order to cut global warming. The growth in the population of the world is unprecedented. By the end of this century nearly 9 billion humans will inhabit this planet, placing strains on our environment which are currently inconceivable. Just as in past centuries wars will be fought over resource allocation, only this time it will not be over minerals. It will be over land and water. Sustainable resource utilization mandates careful policy development and implementation.

We are doing our part at Dynamic Adsorbents. We are the foremost company that has developed and manufactured a series of specialty activated aluminas that can remove many of the toxic heavy metals that pollute our water supplies. Recognizing water safety has not yet come to the forefront as a public safety issue. But it will.

Contact your representatives. Let them know that it is not just time to think about C02 emissions and global warming. It is time to restore our world to the beautiful place we were given to live in when we came into this world and we want it to be just as beautiful and safe for the next generation.

Gary Witman, MD

December 15, 2009

How can an adsorbent company such as DAI help our nation’s energy needs?

Day after day forward thinking companies are contacting DAI to help provide solutions to address our nations need for energy independence. And the company can certainly help them.

Here are just a few of the exciting ways in which we can help our company provide the means for energy dependency

  1. remove the water and other liquid solutions from hydrogen fuels which can be used to power vehicles

  2. stabilize the lithium used in newer generation batteries which will power the next generation of hybrid vehicles

  3. remove the sulfur out of unrefined and refined petroleum

  4. assure that the water reaching municipal water supplies is clean and pure after shale fractionation for gas extraction

We committed to assuring that the environment is clean for future generation by providing simple and affordable solutions now.

You will be surprised at what solutions the DAI technical staff may be able to suggest by helping you with your environmental cleanup needs, Further we are here to provide the essential technical support to help you work through to the achievement of a satisfactory solution.

Dr. Gary B. Witman

December 9, 2009

New York Times: 49 million in the US Exposed to Dangerous Water

I hope you had the chance to see the recent article first released in the December 8th edition of the NY Times and then nationally syndicated regarding "49 million in the US Exposed to Dangerous Water." This provocative investigative reporting found that more than 20% of the nation's water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last 5 years, with water serving 49 million people containing illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium.

At DAI, we feel that it is a good time to remind people that our company was formed and is in business to fight such important environmental issues by providing the best, cost-effective solutions to cleaning up our environment and protecting against other public health hazards. We do this through the unique and creative use of carefully defined activated wide pore alumina that is
targeted to specific cleanup and other applications.

The special amphoteric properties of activated alumina provide an important weapon in the fight for a cleaner, healthier environment. Unlike other companies which sell this adsorbent, for years DAI has played an instrumental role in defining how alumina can be modified and manipulated to enhanced its utility for separation and environmental cleanup applications. Not only do independent lab tests show DAI providing the highest quality alumina in the industry, but we are the only company manufacturing unique, specialized aluminas targeted towards specific applications. In addition, we are the only company capable of developing customized alumina targeted to meet the specific needs of your company.

In the case of purifying drinking water, our new Dyna-AquaTM line of alumina provides specialized aluminas targeted to the removal of lead, radioactive waste including uranium, copper, and fluoride from the water supply. DAI currently manufactures more than 30 specialized alumina products targeted to unique applications and will continue developing defined high quality products that best deal with environmental cleanup needs.

Please read more about our products and applications throughout our web site (products, applications or FAQ), or call or email us with any questions or to request any product or other info.

As, always, thank you for your consideration and we look forward to doing business with you in building a cleaner, safer environment. Your ideas and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

From all of us at DAI wishing you the best in this festive Holiday season. And let us hope that the political leaders of the world are able to come to a consensus in Copenhagen this month recognizing that we are the shepherds of this earth and it is our job to keep our environment clean and sustainable for future generations.

Read Article

Mark Moskovitz, PhD

 

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