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Please visit our blog at its new home: http://www.dynamicfiltration.ca/blog/.

Filtration Forecast 2013

With the forecast strong for filtration systems and products in 2013, it’s useful to take a look at some of the factors contributing to that continued growth. We’ve talked quite a bit in the past about our work with the vacuum truck industry, and municipalities and town works departments continue to invest in that important technology. This month, however, we’ll take a higher-level look at some global trends in the industry.

Besides vacuum trucks, we do a lot of work in industrial air filtration, which is one of the strongest areas of growth. Much of this growth is taking place in places like China and other East Asian countries, where not only are industrial buildings being built at a rapid pace, but there is increasing oversight of working conditions and safety – a definite need for quality air filtration.

As you’ve probably heard, North American manufacturing also remains strong, and as key indicators continue to thrive, factories in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico will continue to require air filters both for manufacturing purposes and for workers’ health. One area where the need for super-efficient filters is emerging, both domestically and overseas, is the nanotechnology industry. As advances continue to occur there, ULPA and other types of filters will be required to protect engineers and equipment – a high-yield opportunity for filter media manufacturers.

We’re Expanding!

Things are still a little tough all over, but at Dynamic Filtration, we’re lucky enough to be so busy that we need to expand our operation.  Right now, we are planning to add 7,500 sq. ft. to our existing 8,500 sq. ft. Waterloo, Ontario building. Up until now, we have had to squeeze both our production and storage in the same area, but with the upgrade both will have dedicated areas. This will allow us to manufacture and supply more inlet filters, and filter systems for compressors and blower units. It will also make our filter recovery services more efficient and responsive to our customers.

All of this growth is coming a critical moment in our industry, because we’ve really seen a boom in our work with filtration systems for vacuum trucks. More and more people are learning the incredible benefits of vacuum trucks for a wide variety of uses, including using vacuum trucks and our filters to install telephone poles without disturbing and existing wires. Not exactly, the first thing you think of when you think of a vacuum truck, but it is a perfect example of how wide a reach the industry now has.

As the expansion progresses we will be posting updates and pictures to the blog, so keep checking back!

New Website, Same Great Products and Service

Everyone at Dynamic Filtration is excited about our brand new website! Now it is easier than ever to learn about all our amazing products and services.  Each of our elements and filters can be found in their own unique sections that are filled with pictures and every specification you could possible need to make the right filtration choices.   We really wanted a website that matched our commitment to manufacturing the best air and liquid filter products on the market.  You can see, search, and research all of our filter elements (Moulded, Sewn End), Inlet Filters (Panel, Canister), Dust Collectors, and EDM Filter Elements. In addition, the site allows easy access to all of our social media accounts, so you can stay up to date on our newest products, projects, and all the latest industrial filtration news.

Please take a few minutes out of your busy day, and check out our new website. As always we’d love to hear what you think, so contact us with any suggestion or just to tell us “nice job!”

The 11th World Filtration Congress Does Not Disappoint

Good things come to those who wait.  And this year’s 11^th WorldFiltration Congress, an event that occurs only once every four years, was the perfect example of this. Taking place this past April 16-20 in Graz, Austria, WFC 11 welcomed more than 1,800 participants and included 340 technical presentations.  50 countries and 100 exhibitors from the worldwide filtration and separation industry were represented, and some fascinating short courses were offered to those in attendance.  

Topics covered included solid-liquid separation by vacuum, pressure and centrifugal filtration, cartridge and depth filter, gravity and centrifugal sedimentation, hydrocyclones, flotation, and absorption.  Everything from the basic fundamentals to purification and the use of surfactants and filter aids was discussed.

On the filtration front, experts spoke about all aspects of aerosol filtration and separation, air filtration, and gas separations, including high temperature separations and emission control.  

The short course offerings were invaluable, including one entitled “The Solid-Liquid Separation Process,” which presented information on membranes, filtration principles, cake filters, computer software, and more.  This was taught by Professor Richard Wakeman and Dr. Steve Tarleton, both of Great Britain.  Experts from the U.S and Taiwan taught a course on “Membrane Filtration and Separation,” while two German authorities presented the “Centrifuges for Solid-Liquid, Liquid-Liquid, and 3-Phase Separation” course.  

The next WFC will occur in Taipei in 2016, and industry professionals are already getting excited. 

Growth and Knowledge at the 25th Annual AFS

This week from June 4-7 the AFS conference will be taking place in Boca Raton, FL, and will be celebrating its 25^th year.  We at Dynamic Filtration are excited to hear about this annual event, which will include an array of interesting topics, many of which are at the core of our focus and our strengths.  

Four days will be jam-packed with informational sessions led by leaders in the industry.  On June 5, Wilson Poon will speak about “Filtration Performance of Clean and Realworld Loaded Filters Under Humid Conditions.” This is an especially noteworthy topic for us, as our filters can be used within all types of environments.  Our range of products, all made of the highest quality, stand up to humidity and other conditions, and we’re certain that Mr. Poon’s talk will prove relevant.  

Also on June 5, Richard Nixdorf will lead a discussion on “Emerging Filtration Media,” a topic we believe is of great importance.  Never ones to rest on past success, we are always looking at the latest advances in technology.  There are new and exciting trends emerging daily, and we believe it’s important to stay on top of them.  

For more information on the 25^th annual AFS conference, visit www.afssociety.org/spring2012/sessions.

Techtextil: North America’s Textile Show

The biggest weekend in the North American textile and nonwoven industry happened this past April, in Atlanta, GA: the Techtextil 2012 trade show, showcasing the manufacturers and industries that keep the textile market one of the strongest in the region. As you know, Dynamic Filtration is focused in one area of this industry: industrial filtration for air and liquid particles, including areas like vacuum trucks, manufacturing filtration, and compressors. Techtextil 2012 covered the widest possible swath of textile uses, from advanced clothing, to building materials, to packaging materials, and of course, filtration. The common thread running through each of these applications? Innovation.

Techtextil’s website features a useful overview of just how extensive the range of exhibitors and attendees ran, in terms of industry, at this page. Looking at that list, Dynamic Filtration’s products reside most strongly in two areas: “Indutech,” and “Geotech.” These two product families cover our industrial filtration products, as well as our extensive work with vacuum truck operators, in waste disposal, municipal work, and environmental cleanup. This last sector places us squarely in one more of Techtextil’s industry designations, “Oekotech,” the branch of textiles dealing with environmental concerns. Our blog readers and Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn followers are well-versed in the work vacuum trucks do to help alleviate environmental catastrophes.

Those are the types of jobs where filtration is most important, to keep machinery running cleanly and effectively. For more information, be sure to visit our site: http://www.dynamicfiltration.ca.

FABTECH Canada 2012 Recap

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in - Canada’s Society of Manufacturing Engineers is probably relevant to you. The same goes for their annual FABTECH conferences, and FABTECH Canada 2012 was no exception. In the filtration business, there are a lot of fields of interest to us: textiles, woven and nonwoven, metal stamping and forming (for filter housings), and of course, new products and areas where our filters might be used. FABTECH Canada provided a little bit of everything.

What were some of the highlights? We work a lot with the welding industry, on, for instance, fume extractors. As you’ll see if you scroll down this page of new products on display at the, there were some new welding helmets from AntecTrade – another type of product that we supply filters for (though not that specific line). FABTECH also kept their Facebook page up-to-date with pictures throughout the event, and you can see them all here: http://www.facebook.com/FABTECH.Canada. All in all, it was another rousing success for SME and FABTECH!

A “Can-Do” Attitude: Dynamic Filtration and CANDU Reactors

CANDU6 Reactor Face

Ask the average person on the street, and they probably couldn’t tell you much about how a nuclear power plant actually works. They might know that uranium is typically used as fuel, they’ve probably heard terms like “enrichment” (and not necessarily in the best context), and some might even be able to tell you that water is typically used as a cooling agent once the fuel is spent. Even just a simple, passing awareness like that, is enough to lend itself to a discussion of Dynamic Filtration’s work with Canada’s CANDU nuclear reactors.

CANDU is an acronym, short for Canada Deuterium-Uranium: Canada, for the country of origin; deuterium, for the moderating agent (more than that later), and uranium, for the fuel. Deuterium, for the uninitiated, is a “heavy isotope” of hydrogen, meaning it possesses a neutron, while standard hydrogen has none. And that’s about as close as we’ll get to a rehash of your high school physics class (which may have have already been too close, for some people). The purpose of using deuterium, which, when substituted for hydrogen, creates “heavy water,” is to maintain the potency of the uranium fuel, lessening the absorption of neutrons by the water and therefore increasing the amount of time that the fission reaction will occur.

This is where the term “enrichment” comes into play, as well. In a “light water” reactor, the water absorbs too many neutrons, and natural uranium must be enriched to increase its levels of Uranium-235. Enrich it to 5%, and you have useful uranium for fuel. Enrich it to 90%, and you’ve got a nuclear weapon, and lot of new enemies. Of course, enrichment facilities can be used to achieve either of these ends – and are expensive, to boot. Since the CANDU reactor doesn’t require enriched uranium, this whole concern is irrelevant.

Where does Dynamic Filtration enter the picture? As you might imagine, that heavy water needs to be pure to successfully facilitate the nuclear reaction – 99.75% pure, in fact. Dynamic Filtration’s filters keep the incoming water contaminant-free, and the outgoing, used water free of any foreign materials so that it may be disposed of properly.

Be sure to contact us at Dynamic Filtration with any further questions!

Pumper Show 2012

Here at Dynamic Filtration, we’re not just content to call a filter a filter and move forward with a quality, if unchanging, inventory. We know that filters change, but more so, applications change, and it’s important to us and our customers that we keep up-to-date on those changes to maintain the best possible offering. Trade shows are one of the best ways to stay on the cutting edge of who is using filters, and what they’re using them for, and the 2012 Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo  (you might know it better as the Pumper Show) suits that need for one of our core industries: vacuum trucks.

Occurring in Indianapolis this week, the Pumper Show will feature a host of fascinating filtration and vacuum truck topics: vacuum trucks used with drilling in the Marcellus Shale Region, and positive displacement blower vacuum equipment, to name a few. There will also be discussion of filter concerns in other wastewater applications beyond vacuum trucks, for instance, effluent filters used to protect drain fields. And, as any good business seminar should include, lots of talk of how to promote and market your services. We’re most looking forward to information on positive displacement blower-equipped trucks, and any other types of new or unconventional vacuum trucks – developments that will play a part in our inventory planning for the next year and beyond. As always, contact us with any questions on all types of filtration!

How Vacuum Trucks Keep the World Clean and Safe

Vacuum trucks play a big role in a number of different industries and Dynamic Filtration plays an even bigger role in making these trucks work properly. Much like your household vacuum, these trucks pick up dust, dirt and liquids, only on a much larger scale.  Both use the same basic filtration systems to get the job done. So why would you need a vacuum truck in the first place?

Safety and Protection

While construction crews rely on backhoes and other heavy-duty equipment to handle most of their digging, there are times when a much lighter touch is needed. When digging around electrical and gas connections, they will use a vacuum excavator truck to carefully remove and loosen dirt and soil. This not only protects the pipes and cables, but also the workers themselves. 

Unclogging the Drain

Working with sewers is always tricky. Before you actually get to the job of cleaning out the sewer itself, you need to get to it. Vacuum trucks are helpful in removing all the debris that clogs the above-ground drains. Once this is accomplished, the vacuum truck will have access to the sewer so it can remove what it needs to remove. Pretty sure there is no need to say more than that!

Emergencies

While vacuum trucks play a role in everyday life, they also play a pivotal role in emergencies like sudden oil spills and unexpected flooding. If there is an accident in a large oil field, you need to be able to quickly access the area to limit both financial and environmental losses. A powerful but mobile vacuum truck is a great way to contain damage and loss, while all necessary repairs are being made.  This is also the case with flooding from rain or snowmelt. These trucks can be used to keep major highways and streets passable for traffic and emergency vehicles.

Overall, vacuum trucks are clearly an invaluable tool. Of course, these trucks wouldn’t be able to do their jobs without the proper filtration systems. You wouldn’t run your household vacuum without a bag or a filter, and the same goes for these trucks. At Dynamic Filtration we supply a wide variety of these trucks with the filters necessary to function perfectly every time they are called upon. If you want to learn more about our industrial filters, visit our website or contact us today.

One More Option: All About Stainless Steel Filter Cartridges

Not all filter cartridges are created equal. Most filtration applications are very well served by paper or synthetic plastic filter cartridges, which are fantastic for a wide range of general services including food, beverage and pharmaceuticals. Yet there are still those times when you need a cartridge that offers great levels of retention and can withstand higher temperatures and pressures. It’s for these more demanding projects that stainless steel filter cartridges are worth a look.

Stainless steel filter cartridges are typically made entirely of 304 or 316 stainless steel, and are completely cleanable and reusable. These two important traits allow our customers in the medical industry to not only maintain a higher level of sterility but to also save money on having to replace paper and plastic cartridges more often.

Stainless steel filter cartridges fit most cartridge-type housings, can withstand differential pressures up to 60 psi, and have a particle retention rating as fine as 5 microns. Plus, unlike other filtration media, seals are never glued onto the cartridge ends. Instead, they are custom shaped so they hold in place just like a grommet. This added measure reduces the chances that they will become dislodged and get lost in shipping. Here at Dynamic Filtration, our main business remains paper and synthetic filters, but we’re also committed to offering a wide range of knowledge to our customers. Keeping you informed of your options helps us to serve you better. Contact us with any questions.

Through Thick And Thin: Light Gauge Plasma Cutting

A filter is a filter, you might think, and a plasma cutter is a plasma cutter. Filtration, however, is our business, and we can say with the utmost certainty that all filters are not created the same. And speaking of creating filters, we’re also well aware that new advances in plasma cutting technology are making filtration manufacturing easier than ever. As you’ve probably seen, the housings and mounts for filtration media, whether for air or liquid, are usually constructed from metal. In order to fit filters into tight spaces, and keep overall product weights down, this metal is often as thin as possible. Plasma cutting takes on a decidedly different aspect when applied to, for instance, 24 gauge sheet metal, but some of the latest cutters on the market keep the process as seamless as possible.

Even with cutters specifically designed for thin and light gauge metals, most of the typical precautions apply. When dealing with a process as energy=intensive as plasma cutting, one can’t be too careful. Be sure that these safety tips remain at the forefront of your checklist, no matter what equipment you’re using:

• Keep a fire extinguisher nearby: One of the biggest dangers in plasma cutting is overheating the substrate metal. With thin, light materials, energy and heat levels can get to the point of ignition even more quickly. A working, inspected fire extinguisher on hand will help prevent a minor spark from becoming a major problem.

• Ensure that the work area is free of other materials: Plasma cutting is designed for metal. This means, for instance, that paper filtration metal shouldn’t be anywhere near the cutting process - valuable inventory could be destroyed, not to mention the much lower flame temperature for those materials. These types of dangers should be either removed or, at the very least, protected from the cutter’s energy focus.

• Keep an eye on the dial: Even with cutters specifically designed for thin gauge metals, there remains a need for fine tuning and monitoring of energy levels. Make sure to periodically stop and inspect notches and cuts made, to ensure that the correct widths and accuracies are being maintained.

Ever since the Fabtech conference of a few months ago, we’ve been keeping an eye on these and other advances in plasma cutting. Learning that the safety rules haven’t changed is probably the most important lesson to be gained. Contact Dynamic Filtration with any further questions!