Half a Century of Developments in Filtration

The year of 1963 is almost certainly most widely renowned for the assassination of US President John F Kennedy. However, at that time in the world of science and technology there were a number of factors at work. Economies around the world were starting to recover from the ravages of the Second World War and there was a large expansion of higher education. Technology was on the move and there was a need to disseminate information. As a result, a number of trade publication started to emerge around this time to meet these needs. Filtration+Separation was one of those publications and this year the magazine celebrates its 50th Anniversary.

In researching articles to mark this landmark it is not difficult to come across instances where so much has changed in the past 50 years. In interviewing Mike Taylor, an original member of the Filtration+Separation team back in the sixties and founder of the FILTECH conferences and exhibitions, he recalls the painstaking publication production process – from typing all the copy by hand to making of blocks for the Letterpress process.

On the filtration front, the journal was well placed to reflect changes in the market. Up to the mid–point of the twentieth century, the filtration industry had managed through the use of natural materials – wood fibre, cotton and wool. However, the filtration industry was well placed to capitalize on the development of new materials. New porous materials and polymeric fibres have provided the bases for new or improved filter media. As new materials have become available over the past 50 years, the filtration industry has embraced these developments to improve strength and corrosion resistance, or indeed filtration performance.

What have been the two main driving forces behind these developments over the past half a century? While one – economic – may have seemed an obvious one back in the 1960s, environmental considerations may not have been thought of as a major driving force in the filtration industry back then. An increasing awareness of the state of the environment and recycling of waste materials have created good business for the filtration industry, and there are other opportunities created by environmental pressures. Two of the common drivers that have particular importance to the filtration business are the need for increases in energy efficiency and improvements in life-cycle costs.

The two most important technical driving forces, that are specific to the filtration industry, are the continual and growing demand for ever finer filtration, and the need for filters of gases or liquids to be able to cope with hotter process fluids. Almost all end-users of filtration are asking for more efficient processes, in which the levels of separation are set at ever smaller particle size cuts, whether for gas or liquid filtration. Indeed the 50 year period that Filtration+Separation has been reporting on the filtration industry has also coincided with the evolution of the most important equipment development associated with this need for finer filtration. The membrane first started to emerge in the early 1960s and is now a mainstay of the industry. What will emerge in the next 50 years?