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Coming Clean



can nonwoven filters answer the call for better air & water quality?



By Ellen Wuagneux
Associate Editor




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What do filtration customers want? Clean air. Clean water. How can roll goods producers meet those requirements? Through increased performance, technological innovation and improved cost efficiencies. This may sound straight-forward, but nonwovens producers in the filtration market are being challenged to offer cutting-edge technology for air, gas and liquid filtration applications while keeping costs down (in a world where costs keep going up). This  may be a tall order, but it hasn’t slowed activity in the filtration sector; in fact, more roll goods producers are entering this arena and bumping competition up to new heights.

Having more players in the game has meant two things: filter makers have more alternatives and filtration customers are demanding more from suppliers. Confirming an overall in­crease in strategic focus from the nonwovens supplier base was Christine Murray, director of filtration at PGI. “Nonwovens producers recognize the rapid dynamics occurring and recognize significant opportunities,” she said.

Turkish producer Mogul Nonwovens has witnessed the growth trend going both ways. “On one side you have nonwovens manufacturers seeking product and market diversification,” said Serkan Gogus, commercial director. “On the other side is the growing filtration market that’s at­tracting them.” As he sees it, in the end, if companies can’t be innovative and compete in the same areas with the same type of products, the profitability and attractiveness of the market will decline.

For most producers, new market entrants aren’t a major concern be­cause products are specified and validated. This makes the cost of changing products expensive for the likely cost savings, especially when the margins and prices are already very competitive. Another boon has been the fact that the filtration market has typically been fragmented, with a range of raw materials and nonwovens technologies used across all segments.

Still, manufacturers can’t rest on their laurels—quality and consistency is sure to continue to play a critical role in filter manufacturers’ buying decisions. Marjorie Wilcox, marketing manager of DelStar Tech­nologies Inc., pointed to the high level of sophistication in­volved in filter manufacturing and said that although high capacity producers have have been looking at the filtration market for a long time, filter manufacturers are more sophisticated than some other markets. “They will not move quickly, or just for a low price,” she said.

Another consideration is the strong value component inherent in highly technical nonwoven filters. While this is an advantage for nonwovens, they still face the challenge of differentiating high value products from lower content alternatives and seeking new markets and applications for core technologies. Patrick Apfeld, vice president of marketing and business development at Lydall Performance Materials, characterized nonwoven filtration products in general as “loaded with technical content providing high levels of value to the filter producers and end users.”  

The higher technical content of specialized filtration products has raised the barriers to entry in filtration, and new market requirements are expected to continue to keep these barriers high. According to Jerome Barrillon, director of marketing, filtration for Ahlstrom, “The field of roll good manufacturers is quite stable and most large names are present. Smaller players have a tendency to come and go based on demand in other industries,” he said.