Despite the challenging times being experienced globally and in our own back yard, some companies have discovered pockets of gold within niche industries that are allowing them to thrive. The Brasco Group, which focuses on moving, cooling and cleaning industrial air, is one such organisation that has cast its service net wide and it is now reaping the rewards.
Gauteng-based Brasco started in 1991 as Brasco Electrical and since then has expanded into the Brasco Group of companies that provides services and products for industrial filtration, kitchen extraction and deep cleaning services, as well as commercial refrigeration.
Since the last Electra Mining Africa event, Brasco Filtration has expanded its industrial filter range, adding more standard sizes and different layout designs.
The company is most proud of its side draught inlet pressurisation filters, says GM Hanru Coetzee. These filters use refrigerant coolant to reduce heat build-up in enclosed spaces such as winder houses, and server and Bitcoin mining rooms. They are also proving most successful in compressor rooms and electrical substations.
Coetzee explains that the idea behind the innovation is to ensure that enclosures receive a continuous supply of clean filtered air that is temperature regulated.
“This reduces maintenance intervals, reduces electrical overload, as well as eliminates compressor tripping induced by temperature stresses,” he says in an interview with Engineering News & Mining Weekly.
Coetzee notes that the system was designed to operate in medium to heavy dusty environments, taking contaminated ambient air through a highly efficient filter and cooling the air before distributing it into the required building or enclosed structure.
The company has worked on several big projects recently, but one that stands out is a major filtration project for the woodworking and lamination industry.
“We designed, manufactured and supplied three separate systems serving vastly different applications to great effect,” says Coetzee.
He explains that two of the systems for the project used Brasco’s top removal plenum or tubular bag configuration, designed for use in larger applications of between 216 m2 and 324 m2. A third system takes advantage of the Brasco standing filter, or envelope configuration, for filter area up to 75 m2.
The industrial filtration division, started by managing member Cyle Bellamy in 2012, is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year.
While Brasco concentrates its efforts in local markets, it is finding that its influence stretches far beyond the country’s borders with more and more sales originating from international markets.
Brasco is on the expansion path and Coetzee says it has secured service level agreements with big cement factories and with entities in the platinum mining industry.