Bl Technologies, Inc.

General Electric Company

Thomas Martin Aune

Travis Gerald Stifter

Upen Jayant Bharwada

Joseph T Szczepanski

William B Laidlaw

A tubular depth filter element has one or more concentric zones. Each zone includes layers of a melt blown filament. An additional filament oscillates through the depth of the element, traversing through part of the depth of the filament with each oscillation but traversing through substantially all of the depth of the element over multiple oscillations. The traversing filament is preferably biased towards the outside of the element. The depth filter element may be made by spraying filaments onto a rotating mandrel. The filaments of the concentric zones are sprayed from fixed nozzles spaced apart along the length of the mandrel. The traversing filament is sprayed from a nozzle assembly that moves laterally or has compound motion relative to the mandrel. For example, the nozzle assembly may oscillate relative to the mandrel while an air attenuator of the nozzle assembly oscillates relative to the remainder of the nozzle assembly.

Melt-blown depth filter element and method of making it

A tubular depth filter element has three or more concentric zones. Each zone is made of an essentially continuous melt blown filament. The filament of an outer zone preferably has a larger diameter than the filaments of other zones. The outer zone overlaps with at least 85%, and preferably all, of another zone. Optionally, one or more additional filaments may traverse through all of zones. The depth filter element is made by spraying filaments onto a rotating mandrel to form a filament mass in contact with a conical press roller. The filaments are sprayed from three or more nozzles which are spaced apart along the length of the mandrel. One of the filaments is formed in a spray pattern that is angled towards an adjacent spray pattern so as to overlap with at least 50 or 85%, and preferably all, of the adjacent spray pattern.

Large format melt-blown depth filter cartridge

Melt-blown depth filter element, method and machine of making it

Growing community of inventors

Minnetonka, MN, United States of America

Thomas Martin Aune