Designing Advanced Filtration Media through Metal Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

Traditional metal filters are manufactured from perforated plate which forms the filter support to withstand operational pressures and one or more layers of woven wire mesh to form the filter portion at the required level of filtration. The design freedoms and capabilities of additive manufacturing (AM) technology provide the opportunity to design novel filter media with integrated support and filter portions that have defined aperture size and strand diameter. Maximizing the open area of a filter increases filtration efficiency. AM integrated filter support and filter portion designs were optimized and the resultant filter media discussed have the potential to decrease the end users' pumping energy requirements and so reduce energy costs and the inherent carbon footprint.

Tunable, Anisotropic Permeability and Spatial Flow of SLM Manufactured Structures

“…Besides the almost classical Titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V [ 27 , 28 , 29 ], various materials have been investigated, such as porous Ni/Ti alloys [ 30 ], Tantalum [ 31 ], or even porous Titanium with immobilized silver nanoparticles to mortify bacteria and prevent biofilms [ 32 ]. Beyond medical implants, porous metal structures are used in fields of catalytic research [ 33 ] or as a filtering medium [ 13 , 34 , 35 ]. Although the stochastic nature of porous material is associated with a random distribution of the pore geometry, reproducible and predictable results in pore size distribution are recommended and therefore controlled process parameters are preferable.…”

Regular Microstructured Elements for Intensification of Gas–Liquid Contacting Made by Selective Laser Melting

“…In addition to heat transfer, the advantages of 3D-printing have also been investigated in other areas of process engineering. For instance, applications in heterogeneous catalysis were proposed: 3D-printed open porous metallic components such as periodic open cellular structures (“3D-printed regular foams”) were discussed as supporting structures for catalysts which enable excellent heat transfer due to the metallic matrix, while allowing an improved flow distribution and low pressure drop. − Porous 3D-printed structures were also discussed as promising filter media . In the field of separation science, among other concepts, printed optimized column packings , or even whole columns for rectification and absorption processes are proposed.…”

“…7−9 Porous 3D-printed structures were also discussed as promising filter media. 10 In the field of separation science, among other concepts, 11 printed optimized column packings 12,13 or even whole columns 14 for rectification and absorption processes are proposed. For example, Fee et al printed regular structured porous media columns out of acrylonitrile−butadiene−styrene with channel dimensions in the range of 100 to 150 μm by stereolithography.…”

3D printing of feed channel spacers for spiral wound membrane modules

“…Therefore, this advantage can be further extended to optimise other parts of the membrane modules and hydrodynamic components such as turbulence promoters, air diffusers, flow distributors, membrane holders/packing and membrane test cells. As a matter of fact, Croft Additive Manufacturing Limited had already successfully manufactured 3D printed metal filters with optimised aperture sizes to reduce pumping power consumption [103]. The ease of fabrication using AM also allows novel module designs for spiral wound, tubular, plate-and-frame and hollow fibre that were not possible to be manufactured using conventional techniques.…”