3M’s High Flow Filter System converts to practical advantages for customers.

The 3M High Flow Filter System delivers high flow filter technology in a compact design. Manufacturers Monthly speaks with filtration expert Andrew Branson about the advantages of combining filtration efficiency with a smaller footprint.

Through its storied history, it’s clear 3M has held a simple mentality when it comes to manufacturing – believing in technology and innovation to best serve customers. The American company manufactures and converts in Australia at facilities in Blacktown and Guildford, NSW. Worldwide, the company invests 4-5 per cent of sales to bolster manufacturing plants with cutting edge science like robotics, 3D printers and laser cutters.

3M’s High Flow Filter System is a perfect example of innovation converting to practical advantages for customers, as it serves the Australian market so well. Andrew Branson, 3M’s ANZ Senior Applications Engineer, began to explain the company’s mentality when approaching products and how it fits in line with his own career journey.

“My love for improving things came from my trade. I enjoy making different things and improving designs,” he said. “I not only enjoying finding new technologies and new ways of improving products, but also finding the right products to match for our customers in applying the technology, whether new or old, to their specific applications.”

The high flow system was created to fill a need in the market. In modern industry, finding room for filtration in the plant room is difficult, so 3M created a compact solution which minimises the space while maximising the flow rate. The system is designed to accommodate flow rates of up to 1900 litres per minute in a single 60 inch length filter cartridge. This means customers require fewer cartridges to maintain process flow requirements, and realise reduced operating costs

When Branson started working at 3M eighteen years ago, the market was offering multiple rounds of a particular cartridge 76 millimetres in diameter. Now, the high flow is larger in diameter and the footprint to achieve the same flow rates takes up three times less space.

A compound radial pleat design helps maximise the usable surface area of each filter. The 3M manufacturing process creates the media to produce a more uniform pleat pattern, which, in turn, allows for greater utilisation of the media by evenly distributing the process fluid throughout the entire filter structure, thus enhancing efficiencies

“They’re absolute-rated which means that it will take out any of the contaminants of a particular micron, from various sizes, up to 70 microns,” he said. “What we found was when customers had to replace cartridges, they had to manually take out 20 or 30 from the housing. This took up to an hour to simply open the vessel, remove the cartridge, replace them and put the vessel back into service.”

3M saw this common challenge for customers and designed the High Flow Filter System to limit downtime when water or liquids weren’t running. Blown microfiber forms the basis of the filter media, which is manufactured to tightly-controlled fiber diameter specifications, producing a media with absolute-rated particle retention characteristics. The aim of the game is particle retention – 3M’s cartridge’s polypropylene end caps, outer sleeve, and core protect the pleat structure integrity and provide a robust filter construction.

“Bigger diameters in the inside after the filtration, the larger diameter format and specialised pleated cartridges help the flow rate,” Branson explained. “We then found a way just to simply lock the cartridge in – using O-Ring fixing which is far more secure than the old double open-ended – and open the housing. Instead of an hour, the process can be done in around seven or eight minutes. It’s easy as changing a light bulb with the twist-to-lock cartridge mechanism so it makes the change-out process really simple.”

3M offers housings with 1, 3, 5, and 7 round variations for the 40,60 and 10 inch filters in 316 stainless or in a sanitary housing option for food and beverage applications. The sanitary housing option is a point of difference for 3M, as it continues to support food and beverage manufacturers with scalable solutions. Beer, wine, spirits and bottled water all have a need for consistent quality and flavour – made possible by the right filtration solutions.

“We’ve had applications where people are using town water, but their quality assurance says we want to ensure that we don’t have particles of a particular size,” said Branson. “For example, for your pre-Reverse Osmosis, you don’t want any contaminants into your expensive membranes. We have a system which mitigates risks against this.”

“An ultraviolet system works by actively killing bugs like cryptosporidium and giardia using UV light. But if there’s particles of five microns or bigger in there, then some of those parasites which are harmful to our health become a problem – the kill rates for the UV become less if there’s those particles in there because it gives them somewhere to hide. So you want a reliable product that is going to remove all those micron particles.”

Branson explained that the system translates to less headaches for quality assurance departments, knowing there’s reliable clean water through that standard coming into the site, regardless of where the water sources are coming from.

“You can also use it in in your bottling line,” he noted. “Whether it’s a pre-filter for spring water, whether you’re using it as a pre-filter for beer or wine at a lower scale, it makes sure that your lenticulars and then your final membranes are better protected. It can do the heavy lifting at a very reasonable cost. And of course, if you’re using it in those applications, then the change-out being so quick and easy is an advantage to your throughput and your downtime for your expensive bottling lines.”

The multiple advantages of the system can be used across a variety of industries:

“With 3M, we are constantly improving the technologies that go into our cartridge and the reliability of them is built around our brand,” Branson concluded. “We don’t put things out there which don’t deliver to their full potential. It’s a simple philosophy which you see across the board, not just in filtration.”

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