Lydall Performance Materials and Limburg Filter have announced that they have co-developed a 'best-in-class' filtration solution for the recovery of fine pigment powder by combining Lydall's Solupor membrane with Limburg's Leaktite filtration technology.
Solupor is a porous, durable, chemical resistant, ultra-high molecular polyethylene membrane that produces very high-filtration efficiencies with low pressure loss. Current applications include liquid filtration in medical, biopharmaceutical, and water purification environments.
Leaktite is a newly developed filtration technology suitable for removal of liquids from slurries using a chamber filter press. It was first proven in the filtration of aqueous graphite dispersions followed by many other applications in the chemical industry.
One of the major filtration issues in the recovery of pigments is that traditional filtration technologies require filtrate recycling - or so-called reflux - until a filter cake has been built up, resulting in a relatively inefficient process.
By using the specially developed Solupor laminated membrane, the Leaktite filter is now able to provide a single-pass filtration option and increase the efficiency for the recovery of expensive pigments, eliminating the need for reflux.
David Williams, president, performance materials at Lydall, said: "A key focus at Lydall is growing our presence in the filtration marketplace through product innovation. Our Solupor product has already shown great promise in helping to solve challenging filtration applications. We are very pleased with the collaboration with Limburg Filter and the resulting innovation that creates a solution to a problem previously unsolved."
Frank Kruip, CEO of Limburg Filter, stated: "We believe the new Solupor technology will further enhance our filtration product offering."
Lydall presented the development at the Filtech Exhibition in Wiesbaden, Germany, this month.
