Company Announcement - A leading filtration specialist is delivering fresh innovation through its extensive new controlled plastics cutting capability, achieving strong results at very high tolerance levels for a wide range of applications. Porvair Filtration Group – a manufacturer of sintered porous Vyon® and BioVyon™ plastic materials – is now able to manufacture large area discs and shapes thanks to the state-of-the-art addition to its Wrexham facilities. The company is also opening up its new contract cutting capability for other non-porous plastics materials, saving time, reducing errors and minimising waste.

Porvair, honoured last year with the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade, has invested more than £100,000 in its new cutting technology and environmental controlled area. Its precision cutting technology operates in a new temperature-controlled environment within +/-10C to ensure exact specifications are met, this is crucial for applications such as the manufacture of process chromatography support discs.
Achieving tight tolerances on large areas is challenging because changes in temperature will shrink or expand the material, so strict controls are essential. Porvair’s new capability enables cutting of plastics sheets of up to a length of three metres by a width of two metres and 25.4mm thickness to be cut to a tolerance of +/-0.4mm and at a controlled temperature tolerance of +/-10C.

Customers often define the temperature at which the component needs to be measured, and Porvair is keen to meet their ever-growing expectations while driving defining improvements across the industry. Process chromatography columns are used by the pharmaceutical industry for the large-scale purification of drugs such as insulin or therapeutic antibodies. The columns can have a diameter from 40mm up to two metres and use porous discs, known as bed supports, at the top and bottom of the column to contain and support it. Porvair’s General Manager, Roy Rigby said: “We are always working hard to realise industry-leading innovation, and this new cutting capability is already key to delivering large area disc applications for our sintered porous Vyon™ and BioVyon™ plastics. “We believe that the ability to cut plastic large area shapes to very tight tolerances under controlled temperatures is a significant requirement across many industries. We’re therefore pleased to be able to offer it to customers and open up the capability to contracting cutting after investing in its wide benefits – benefits that we are certain they will share in.”

Porvair – which has supplied the process industry with performance-driven filtration equipment for over three decades – manufactures in both the UK and USA and has an extensive network of sales offices and distribution channels throughout the world.