New chair to promote innovation in filters

Promoted by the Consolidated Research Group on Separation Processes, Membranes and Polymers, the new chair is led by Joan Llorens, professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Chemistry. “One of the objectives of the University is to turn everything we work on useful to improve our companies. This what we are doing with the launch of this chair”, says Llorens.

Also, the rector of the UB, Joan Guàrdia, notes that “…”

The company this chair focuses on is located in Solsona, far from the industrial environment of capital cities such as Barcelona. In this regard, Llorens highlights the importance of increasing the industrial activity in areas where there was only agricultural activity to date”. “Personally, coming from a village from the inlands of Catalonia, this chair is absolutely satisfying”, he says.

AMES Solsona, which belongs to the industrial group AMES; has a production line of sintered metal filters. These filters are metallic pieces with high porosity which are used to control the pressure drop or to measure the fluid flow or the output of a gas under constant pressure. They are also used as anti-humidity and flame anti-return mechanisms. These features are used in a wide range of fields, from chemistry to food, transport and household appliances, and they have an industrial use in different pneumatic and hydraulic mechanisms.

According to Cèsar Molins, general manager of AMES, the company decided to promote this product line to diversify their activity, which is very focused on the automotive industry. After detecting the great potential of sintered filters and starting to open up the market, in AMES, they realized they lacked “technical knowledge of the product to be able to co-design it with customers and present technically and economically competitive solutions”. This is why, they decided to “ask the lecturer of University of Barcelona Joan Llorens”, continues Molins. This collaboration, which started four years ago, has led to the recent creation of the UB-AmesPore Chair.

“One of the objectives of the chair is to innovate to improve aspects such as characterization and efficiency of filters and creation of new types of filters that can enter more specialized sectors of microfiltration and ultrafiltration”, notes Jesús Peñafiel, director of Marketing and Business in AMES.

Other highlighted objectives are providing scientific training and calculation support to the technical team in AMES Solsona in filtering mechanisms in order to calculate industrial filtration installations and predict the behaviour of filters in service, as well as having access to a high-level scientific consultancy that can help solve specific situations presented by the AMES customers.

“Collaboration through the chair is proving to be fruitful, which is seen when you see the continued double-digit growth year after year in the AmesPore® sintered filter unit, a growth based in technology and customer service”, Peñafiel concludes.