Expanding Wetlaid Filtration Media Performance Through Innovation and Enhanced Product Testing

Wetlaid technology has played a major role in the production of filtration media for many years. Due to its versatility, this technology has been challenged and continues to evolve with many advances allowing it to produce more and more unique specialized products. Capitalizing on the latest technological developments coupled with new and enhanced raw materials, wetlaid technology will continue to play a prominent role well into the future.

New and unique manmade fibers have been developed and subsequently introduced into the design blends. These fibers include glass, synthetic polymer fibers and structurally altered cellulose fibers, each bringing their own unique features imparted to product properties. The introduction of these fibers has given increased control of the diameter, length and the variation thereof, and in turn has allowed the manipulation and optimization of the final product.

Innovation in both the chemistries used and the method of application of these chemistries to the media have further enhanced product properties, facilitating media application areas previously unavailable to standard wetlaid.

Wetlaid technology demonstrates its versatility further by its ability to combine with numerous other media born of a whole host of diverse technologies. Drylaid, polymer-spun, electro-spun and other technologies, coupled with wetlaid products, results in combinations of multilayered constructions shown to deliver unique properties.

How media is analyzed through standards and bench testing continues to improve in order to better understand and serve customers. The ability to develop close-to-real-life testing methods has dramatically sped up the innovation cycle, has led to media with improved compatibilities, delivering extended filtration lifetime, higher particulate removal efficiency and better performance aligned with needs of the end user.

Willy Bordignon will be addressing this topic in a keynote presentation on Tuesday, April 21, 2020, at World Filtration Congress 13. Early registration is underway.

Willy Bordignon has been Vice-President Filtration & Performance Americas at Ahlstrom-Munkjso since 2016. He started his career at Ahlstrom in 1995 in Brazil and was responsible for sales for the Filtration Business Area in South America. Over the years he has held different management positions in the company including sales, plant management, global product development, global product management & marketing and business unit management. He received his Bachelor of Engineering from University of Campinas in Brazil in 1992 and his MBA in 2009 from Fundacao Dom Cabral / Kellogg School of Business.