31. Oct 2019

Filtration mesh: Efficiency in water treatment operations

Thanks to the close networking of the Engineering, Development and Production departments under one roof, GKD – GEBR. KUFFERATH AG creates innovative weaves for groundbreaking key applications in the water treatment sector. This makes GKD the world's most sought-after expert for process, ballast and waste water filtration and a development partner in numerous research projects on sustainable water treatment. The basis for this is formed by the broad product range of high-performance meshes, mesh laminates and filter elements. With filtration rates from six to 1,000 µm and an extremely broad spectrum of weaveable materials, this gives rise to highly efficient solutions.

Employing experimental and computational simulation, GKD develops customer-specific and process-dependent meshes that regularly set new standards in water processing. The focus here lies in particular on pore geometry as a way of adjusting the flow rate, mechanical stability, and performance of the woven structures to new requirements. Two mesh ranges currently show themselves to deliver particularly high performance thanks to their special designs: Optimized Dutch Weaves with pore sizes in line with the German Institute of Mechanical Process Engineering (IMVT) from five to 100 µm impress with high permeability, a low clogging tendency, mechanical strength, a large dirt holding capacity and good cleaning performance. The single-ply mesh is therefore a deciding factor for success in many demanding processes. These include ballast water filtration, process water treatment or the filtration of outlet water from sewage plants to retain microplastics. The further development of the Optimized Dutch Weaves are Porometric meshes with pore sizes from 13 to 1,000 µm. Their three-dimensional slit structure with over 80 percent porosity increases flow rate by up to 40 percent. In ballast water filtration, for example, they successfully allow for the limited space available without any alteration to the size of the filter equipment. In addition, the refined particle retention reduces costs in the downstream UV treatment process. Whether they are material combinations or designs made of metals, such as Monel or Super Duplex, all saltwater-proof Porometric meshes have PREN values of over 40. They surpass all other filter media available in the market for ballast water treatment in terms of cleaning characteristics, flow rate, and particle retention.