 However it has much broader application in the chemical process industry and can be used for the removal of surface active contaminants from waste water streams in addition to the enrichment of bio-products.Whilst protein skimmers have been common place in aquaria for many years, it was not until the 1960s that a concerted effort was made by Robert Lemlich of the University of Cincinnati to characterise a model of adsorptive bubble separation processes, of which foam fractionation is one example.Until the mid-2000s, there was very little further development of foam fractionation or attempts to understand the underlying physics of the process.