NOTES TECH Amazon Filters Launches Sustainable Polypropylene Filter Media

Amazon Filters has become the first industrial filter maker in the UK to use polypropylene manufactured from renewable resources in the production of meltblown filter media. The Surrey-based manufacturer has launched sustainable polypropylene versions of its flagship ranges SupaSpun II, SupaGard, Contour and VisClear II.

These filters are widely used in critical liquid filtration processes in industries such as municipal water, oil and gas, food and beverage, chemicals and coatings, and pharmaceuticals. Traditionally, monomers sourced from fossil fuels have been the base media feeding into the polymers involved in polypropylene manufacturing.

But now, under a “mass balance approach” developed by Vienna-headquartered Borealis, a world leader in polymer development and manufacture, a proportion of the fossil-derived propane can be replaced by an identical volume of sustainable monomers that are tested to ensure the same level of quality. Amazon Filters’ product variations involve Borealis’ Bornewables polymers made from sustainably sourced renewable feedstocks. They are derived solely from waste and excess vegetable oils such as used cooking oil and residues from vegetable oil processing.

The approach has already been used in polypropylene manufacture by early adopters in the Netherlands, including in the production of medical face masks and other filter media. Describing the process, Amazon Filters Managing Director Neil Pizzey said raw waste vegetable oil collected from restaurants and the food industry is used to make the monomers that feed into the polypropylene manufacturing process in the same way as monomers sourced from fossil fuels. www.amazonfilters.com