Regulation drives innovation....Part 1 fuel filtration

I want to be very controversial today and suggest that, in spite of feelings to the contrary by those who believe that the free market should dominate the the technology trends in filtration, the function of government regulation is as important to driving innovation as any amount of customer needs. 

The reason for this statement is that in the last few years of working on filter media technology, areas where regulatory control has been strongest has driven the market to change and innovate. Where there has not been the drivers to make changes, the need for lower cost and commoditisation of products has led to a stagnation in technology. 

The two examples that I want to use are fuel media technology and HVAC. In this blog I will focus solely on fuel filtration. 

Emissions regulation driving the fuel filter market
The need for emissions control into the atmosphere is a major public health hazard globally. Couple this with the rapid growth in car and truck ownership in the Developing World we are facing a major challenge. 

Car and truck emissions of concern are:

• soot particles from diesel trucks and cars. We discussed the filtration of soot in an earlier blog. In this case the challenge is to avoid the emission of soot in the first place. These form potentially carcinogenic particles known as PM2.5's and contribute significantly to smog in the atmosphere.   
• NOx. The formation of nitrogen oxides is a by-product of high temperature combustion. Reducing the fuel consumption is a key route to reducing the levels of emissions. 

Both of these factors have led to increasing regulatory control globally. The leadership is driven by the Europeans through a series of emissions limits over the years known as Euro I-VI. These couple the particulate and NOx emissions and set stringent demand on new vehicles on the roads. 

Outside of emissions controls, many countries e.g. UK and Germany have used tax as a powerful lever to ensure that the cost of fuel remains high (In Germany the tax is €0,83/litre) and to drive manufacturers to be more fuel efficient and reduce the consumption of fuel. 

There are many technology requirements needed to achieve these targets including exhaust catalyst systems and with increased control on the dosing of fuel to the injection systems. The latter has driven a need for cleaner fuel in both petrol and diesel systems. 

In particular diesel powered vehicles (due to the lower fuel consumption but higher particulate emissions) has seen both a greater growth in usage and also a greater focus in terms of technology and innovation. 

Diesel fuel has a range of challenges to meet the requirements of the regulations due to its inherent dirtiness. The key issues are: 

• water content: this varies regionally over the globe with the highest levels in China, India and Brazil. The diesel filter has to shed the water to ensure that the droplets don't corrode the the injectors and inhibit clean ignition.
• waxes and broad chemical composition. Diesel, unlike petrol has a wider range of chemical composition with much higher molecular weight organic components. These are often waxy, particularly at lower temperatures leading to blockages of fuel filters requiring the fuel to be pre-heated to around 70C. However the sources of material for diesel also alter. Diesel is primarily a hydrocarbon from oil but, increasingly, bio-sourced components are being used for a portion of the diesel fuel e.g. rape seed oil or soya oil. The behaviour of these materials is much more aggressive to filters than traditional mineral oil based diesel.   

• inherent particulate concentration in the fuel. As with water  variability n the quality standards to which diesel is manufactured leads to different levels of free particulates as can be seen from the global map from Bosch. Higher levels of particulates demand longer lifetime elements in terms of dust holding capacity. 

Increased performance specifications for diesel fuel filtration

These increasing demands of performance have seen the market move significantly over the last 10 years. The demands for increased diesel fuel filtration performance has seen a move from media with 80-90% 4 micron efficiency to ISO 19438 to 99.5% 4 micron efficiency at the same level currently. This was achieved initially through the development of more efficient cellulose media, operating at the limits of a standard paper machine (1-2 cfm permeability). IN the US addition of glass increased this efficiency further. However the risks of glass fibres being washed from the filter into the fuel line, damaging the engine was not accepted in Europe. Increasing the efficiency decreases the lifetime of the element as the initial pressure drop increases. Thus composites have become required (see my previous blog on gradient density). Initially these were single layer cellulose meltblown composites with PBT (for chemical and heat resistance) but as the targets for efficiency have been driven higher by Bosch and others, the limits of cellulose have slowly been surpassed and multi layer all synthetic composites will be the requirement for the future or cellulose based composites where the cellulose acts solely as a pleatable backer to enable the material to be processable on standard pleating lines.    

The increasing need for water separation has led to the development of complex dual stage elements. Water is always present in all fuel. The water droplets in all fuel are created by the actions of pumps and are stabilised by the presence of surface active ingredients in the fuel such as lubricity additives and anti oxidants. With increasing use of bio diesel, the long chain fatty acids of natural oils also behave as surface active components, reducing the surface tension and both increasing the stability and decreasing the particle size of the droplets. The result is a need for a coalescing, water shedding pre-filter with an excellent water separation to ISO 16332. In many modern fuel filter assemblies the result is a two stage water and particle separation for diesel. 

Summary

The increasing complexity of fuel filters over the last decade has not been driven solely by process economic but by regulation. The fact that the latest standards in fuel filtration have been set in Europe are related to the increasingly tight regulations in Europe. The fact that China is still only now implementing Euro IV standards of emissions cleanliness whilst the EU is at Euro VI show that the regulatory environment is driving the technological environment. If we had left this solely to the market, would Europe have developed the most advanced fuel filtration systems in the world? Probably not- this market, like others in filtration would have ended up with low cost static performance, not the vibrancy of technological innovation. 

The high levels of environmental cleanliness are the least that our children should expect from us. For once the regulators are not wrong and are setting the standards that drive innovation. 

The Filtration Industry- an aversion to change

Here is a statement that will divide opinions, the filtration industry has a major aversion to change. Why do I make this statement when we are bombarded with better performance all the time? The reason is that whilst media technology improves, real innovation change requires a fundamental change in the nature and design of filter elements. 

This requires the filter manufacturers to subsequently change their manufacturing processes and consequently there is an implied cost that the manufacturer is not prepared to, or can't, absorb.

So, in essence, any innovation from the media supplier has to fit with a pre-conceived element design technology that is desired by the element manufacturer or which is accepted by the wider market. In this blog I want to discuss some limiting issues that hinder the wider utilisation of new technology in filter media design. 

The material is too expensive
This is the top of everyone's list. If I had 1 Euro for every time I read that the new technology X was too expensive then I'd have retired to my luxury desert island long ago. 

All new technology has a cost whether it be the latest iPhone 6 or the latest filtration product from  H&V or Neenah Gessner. The problem is that most companies look at the headline cost of a filter material and immediately conclude that they can't afford it. The benefit of a technology is in terms of the value that it brings to the market. 

In filtration this is measured primarily in technical performance over the lifetime of the element plus any reduced costs in the manufacture of those elements. So the total value proposition is equal to the sum of the material + processing costs + value of the element performance i.e. cost per 1000km or 1000 hours of usage. 

The requirement is for....

Often existing specifications are the biggest barrier to change. Factors such as the paperwork changes, customer re-approval hinder innovation, element manufacturers become shortsighted and averse to change- "Cellulose plus phenolic resin does the job now, so why not in the future?" I've seen all sorts of examples of this including, it must be light yellow because that is what we use just now!

The Technology doesn't deliver what was promised...

My biggest gripe in this blog is the fact that flatsheet performance may deliver but the element manufacturer often can't see the benefit. For example if a new material doesn't fit the conventional expectations of thickness then the gap between pleats may become too narrow on a standard element. This means that the lifetime benefits of the technology are not fully realised. 

In short the failure here as in many developments lies both with the technology developer for not educating the element manufacturer but also with the element manufacturer who operates in a single dimension. 

This material won't process

Most filter elements in the automotive market are pleated elements. The technology for pleating elements has changed little in 50 years. The mechanical blade or rotary pleaters widely used in industry are relatively cheap in comparisons to other production technologies. The cost of a second hand pleater can be less than $60,000 and this will get you a good entry level production position into this market. The result is that the bulk of the after market in automotive filtration (which represents the bulk of filter sales) manufacturing still rely on mechanical processes that were ideally set up for 100% cellulose materials impregnated with a B-stage phenolic technology (itself over 100 years old) and they are often manufactured by smaller companies who have limited resources to be able to implement or develop significant change. 

This institutionalises filter material to be structured in a format that will fit easily to existing operating protocols and processes. This limitation in processing is the biggest barrier to change in the industry. 

It also impacts on the suppliers of media. If the market for the newest technology is limited due to limited capability to handle it, it makes the vendor risk averse to develop this technology further. 

he End User is Averse to change

Often the reluctance to change comes from the end users. New technology offers a benefit but radical changes in filtration create end user problems. An excellent example was the patented Donaldson Powercore fluted filter media technology. This technology offers a completely different filter design to traditional pleated packs, offering a compact, fluted element cartridge. 

Donaldson Powercore Air Filter Element

Donaldson patented to the technology and ruthlessly enforced the patent through legal channels but it was undermined by an industry that wanted a selection of manufacturers offering the technology for after market applications. 

The result was a slow uptake of the technology and Donaldson were forced to accept alternative suppliers such as Mahle and Mann and Hummel into the marketplace. 

In summary the reluctance of the end user to accept change is a barrier to implementation of new technology. 

Summary

This has been a rather personal overview of why filtration technology often doesn't change the paradigm and make dramatic changes. This is of course not always true with major advances in fuel filtration and hydraulic technology and the uses of nanotechnology. 

However on a day to day basis, for typical commodity, large scale filtration applications, there exists an inherent aversion to change. Much of this lies with the inability of the end users and element designers to move from existing technologies and accept change. Element manufacturers also fail to grasp the basic total cost of ownership value model and use technology to justify added value to their products. 

This in turn places constraints on the media designers who have to work within existing design and cost parameters. The end result is institutional paralysis. 

In short, whilst the car we drive may alter on the outside and even the powertrain systems advance, the systems that protect the engine are still essentially 50 year old technology hidden under the bonnet out of sight and do not look as if they will change soon.

They definitely are not iPhones!

Have fun....

Tony