Wear control and filtration specialist Filter Focus has launched a new range of rare-earth magnetic filters, Magna-pure, to provide quench oil industries with significantly extended oil life.

The product range was designed in early 2012 and launched in November to deal with high contamination levels in hydraulic systems, quenching oil, milling, processing and crushing applications, as well as at iron-ore mines.

The product, which is manufactured to customer specification and has a lead time of about two weeks from receipt of order, is also designed for use in diesel industries, where its installation can extend the life of pumps and components.

Filter Focus COO Craig Fitz-Gerald says typical magnetic filters generally remove about a teaspoon of contamination, whereas the Filter Focus unit removes about 50 kg of contamination.

This is because Filter Focus uses rare-earth neodymium magnets in the Magna-pure system. The magnet, weighing only a few grams, can lift an object 1 000 times its own weight.

Since using rare-earth magnets, the company has achieved particle quantifier (PQ) values – the physical count of magnetic contaminants – of zero, as opposed to previous PQ values of between two and ten when using standard filters.

“Provided that the magnetic array is designed correctly to generate maximum pulling strength and is used in conjunction with the correct combination of mate- rials, the filter will assure PQ values of zero,” notes FitzGerald.

Meanwhile, the magnetic filter range is designed to not only improve filtration levels but also extend the life of the filter elements, which reduces a client’s total cost of ownership.

“Ordinarily, any iron filings or ferrous magnetic contaminants, which are generally highly abrasive and lead to accelerated wear of components, would need to pass through a pump, after which they would be caught in a filter,” says FitzGerald.

However, Magna-pure, which is placed on the suction side of the pump and is capable of handling flow rates of between 1 ℓ and 1 000 ℓ a minute, ensures that any ferrous magnetic contaminants are pulled into the magnetic filter before they pass through the pump, extending the life of pumps and filter elements.

The market has responded positively to the product, says FitzGerald, with the Magna-pure having recently been installed at the facility of vehicle suspension springs manufacturer Supreme Springs, in Nigel.

Although the filtration results from Supreme Springs have yet to be validated, Filter Focus plans to market the product more exten- sively to the quenching industry.

Filter Focus would like to realise a minimum growth of 50% over the next financial year. “We hope to achieve this by placing strong emphasis on penetrating African mining markets that have positive growth potential – specifically those in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia and Ghana,” concludes FitzGerald.