Camfil, an air filters and clean air solutions specialist, is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its pioneering Tech Centre in Trosa, south of Stockholm in Sweden. The ultramodern technical centre covers an area of 2,500 square metres. It has five laboratories—a HVAC particle lab, a HEPA lab, a molecular lab, an indoor air quality lab and a gas turbine lab—all fitted with the latest equipment.
The Trosa Tech Centre is the hub of a global research and development organisation, at the forefront of work to analyse indoor air and to test the performance of different filters. The centre opened in 2010, but Camfil built Europe's first test rig for HEPA filters as early as 1967.
As one of the world's largest research centres for clean indoor air and filtration technology, it is an example of Camfil's innovation and conforms to its business philosophy that the best way to predict the future is to create it.
Anders Sundvik, Vice President R&D at Camfil, said: "As a business, we continue to invest heavily in research and development in order to innovate in the creation of sustainable products at the leading edge of technology."
"Clean air plays a massive part in many industries in terms of productivity and quality but, most importantly, it offers significant benefits for all humans' health and wellbeing. The products that Camfil develops make an enormous contribution to this. The third perspective is environmental concerns by offering the lowest possible energy usage."
He added: "However, Camfil refuses to rest on its laurels. Camfil has proven that it remains at the forefront of technology with the launch of two major filtration products - Megalam EnerGuard and Absolute V, the next generation HEPA filters for sensitive processes."
Both new filter lines increase safety and productivity while also reducing energy consumption.
Megalam EnerGuard is a terminal HEPA/ULPA filter for cleanrooms with lower total cost compared to glass fibre and other competitive filters, through a longer service life, energy cost savings, operational efficiencies and manufacturing process integrity.
It contains a unique media that significantly decreases the chances of filter leaks and resultant room contamination in cleanrooms (first installations achieved 0% failure) to avoid the expensive costs of a product failure due to any mishandling.
Lionel Savin, Global Head of Products at Camfil, said: "Megalam EnerGuard is the achievement of four years of efforts to invent the future of HEPA filtration for cleanrooms. During these years, I had only two questions every week with my R&D team: ‘How will we give confidence to our Customers? What are we missing?'
"I can only thank them for their outstanding resilience, complete dedication, absolute scientific rigour, openness to the unknown and inventing spirit. And the result is amazing. It's not just another product, it is our future."
Absolute V high airflow HEPA filters, meanwhile, are the most energy efficient filters on the market. They provide the best protection with minimal total cost of ownership when installed in air handling units or in-line HEPA housings. Mr Sundvik said: "With the Absolute V filter, we placed a special focus on making our customers' lives easier in regard to weight, robustness and energy consumption."
Lionel Savin added: "In developing the Absolute V platform, we have changed everything: processes, materials, forming technology, in order to bring the lowest environmental footprint product in its category - more than 20% energy savings and half the weight than available products! This is an outstanding result!"
The Camfil Group is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, and has 30 manufacturing sites, six R&D centres, local sales offices in 30 countries, and 4,800 employees and growing.
