Integrated filtration expertise

Pio­neer­ing mesh designs pre­sent­ed byGKD – Gebr. Kuf­ferath AG at Fil­tech. Whether for water pro­cess­ing in large indus­tri­al plants or con­tin­u­ous vac­u­um belt fil­ter sys­tems in the envi­ron­men­tal and min­ing indus­try: At the lead­ing inter­na­tion­al trade fair for fil­tra­tion and sep­a­ra­tion tech­nol­o­gy, the com­pa­ny once again high­lights its inte­grat­ed solu­tion com­pe­tence for fil­ter media and process belt solu­tions in Cologne. With its spe­cial mesh struc­ture and seam tech­nol­o­gy, the Vac­ubelt fil­ter belt range guar­an­tees effi­cien­cy and safe­ty in exact­ing dewa­ter­ing process­es. In process water fil­tra­tion with par­ti­cles larg­er than 500 μm, the rel­a­tive­ly new spi­ral fab­rics pro­duced are also in high demand. Along­side large-for­mat mesh sam­ples, the knowl­edge of process require­ments that the fil­tra­tion and process belt spe­cial­ists have gath­ered over many years makes them sought-after con­tacts for dis­cussing spe­cif­ic issues and solu­tion models.

In view of the grow­ing glob­al demand for phos­pho­rous, potash, and lithi­um, expand­ing extrac­tion capac­i­ties and improv­ing pro­duc­tion effi­cien­cy are crit­i­cal to the suc­cess of the glob­al min­ing indus­try. This is where the dif­fer­ent belt types of the Vac­ubelt range, made of poly­ester monofil­a­ments, are able to make a vital con­tri­bu­tion. All Vac­ubelt fil­ter belts share the core char­ac­ter­is­tics of robust trans­verse sta­bil­i­ty, low crease for­ma­tion, smooth sur­face, good cake dis­charge, and excel­lent clean­ing behav­ior. What’s more, their improved seam design con­tributes to greater process reli­a­bil­i­ty. Its min­i­mal open­ing at the seam means that the extreme­ly flat PAD seam reduces par­ti­cle pen­e­tra­tion. The com­pa­ny fur­ther decreas­es this seam open­ing by insert­ing fill­ing threads, there­by fur­ther low­er­ing the risk of par­ti­cle pen­e­tra­tion. These filler threads are sup­plied with the belt and insert­ed before the clamps are closed. This means that there is no need for the flaps required by oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ers. The advan­tages of the firm seam design are clear: wipers are not stressed by par­tial raised sec­tions and the seam itself is also sub­ject to less wear.

For dewa­ter­ing of phos­ph­o­gyp­sum, the firm offers three ther­mal­ly treat­ed sin­gle-ply vac­u­um fil­ter belts specif­i­cal­ly designed for par­tic­u­lar process­es and appli­ca­tions in the form of the belt types Vac­ubelt 3354, 3356, and 1003. With air per­me­abil­i­ty of 200 to 350 cfm and mesh aper­tures of 150 to 340 μm adapt­ed to the respec­tive plants, they guar­an­tee con­stant high dewa­ter­ing per­for­mance. As such, these belts in widths of up to 4.35 meters and lengths of up to 70 meters ful­fill the high­est ser­vice life and dewa­ter­ing requirements.

In potash fer­til­iz­er pro­duc­tion, the Vac­ubelt 5060 fil­ter belt has proven its worth many times over. With aper­tures of up to 470 μm and air per­me­abil­i­ty of 290 cfm, this belt type reli­ably with­stands the high tem­per­a­tures and cor­ro­sive con­di­tions that are typ­i­cal of this process.

The Vac­ubelt 2015 fil­ter belt has been the glob­al­ly estab­lished stan­dard in the field of FGDP gyp­sum dewa­ter­ing for many years. The small aper­ture of 50 μm – cou­pled with air per­me­abil­i­ty of 55 cfm – jus­ti­fies its supe­ri­or­i­ty over con­ven­tion­al belts for dewa­ter­ing the gyp­sum sus­pen­sion pro­duced dur­ing flue gas desul­phur­iza­tion. Faster dewa­ter­ing, greater pore den­si­ty, less ten­den­cy to clog, ther­mal resis­tance, and very good clean­ing prop­er­ties make the Vac­ubelt 2015 belt type the vac­u­um fil­ter belt of choice for both new sys­tems and retro­fitting exist­ing pow­er plants.

The same belt type is cur­rent­ly also set­ting new stan­dards in lithi­um dewa­ter­ing in vac­u­um drum filters.
In cool­ing lubri­cant fil­tra­tion, the robust Vac­ubelt 3354 fil­ter belt made of poly­ester wires is a proven alter­na­tive to the usu­al polypropy­lene prod­ucts avail­able on the mar­ket. This belt type reli­ably retains swarf and par­ti­cles abrad­ed from the grind­ing wheel with­out the addi­tion of fil­tra­tion aids, even with thin fil­ter cakes.

In indus­tri­al laun­dries, the spi­ral fab­rics that GKD pro­duces entire­ly in house are becom­ing some­thing of an insid­er tip for process water treat­ment with par­ti­cles larg­er than 500 μm. Thanks to their unusu­al­ly high per­for­mance, this prod­uct range, which made its debut at last year’s Fil­tech, is there­fore also rec­om­mend­ed for all oth­er fil­tra­tion process­es requir­ing sim­i­lar sep­a­ra­tion per­for­mance to wash­ing water treat­ment in indus­tri­al laundries.

GKD at the Fil­tech 2019: Hall 11.1, Stand G3