Industry sector: Motorcycle manufacturing
Company activity: For 65 years, the company has designed, manufactured, and marketed mopeds, scooters, and motorcycles. It also performs repair, maintenance, inspection, painting, and tire repair services for motorcycles.
Company type: International group, subsidiary of a major Indian group
Founding period: 1955
Contacts: Technical Director & Head of the Paint Department
Company context
Present in 60 countries, the company leverages its remarkable heritage as a major French brand to expand internationally. Our client operates two production sites and an R&D center employing 500 people.
The group recently invested 2 million euros to consolidate its three production lines into a single, flexible, multi-format line—an initial step in the complete restructuring of its historic plant. Our discussions with the stakeholders led us to identify a paint-quality issue.
Filtration challenge
Our client applies varnish and two colors to its products: metallic black and matte black. The matte black paint has a higher viscosity and contains agglomerates and grains noticeable to the eye and to the touch. Due to this contamination, the paint quality does not meet the requirements expected by the end customer.
The objectives were to resolve the matte black issue through an appropriate filtration solution and to standardize the filter cartridge supply for varnish and metallic black as well:
- Single-source procurement
- Longer filter service life
- Reduced operating costs
Pemflow filtration solution
Faced with this issue, we supplied nominal-depth filter cartridges offering the following advantages:
- Consistent performance
- Thermally bonded structure with no binders, minimizing fiber migration and extractables
- Density gradient for maximum retention capacity
- Increased void volume for high flow rates and low initial pressure drop
The VisClear meltblown filter cartridge from AMAZON FILTERS, made of 100% Nylon 6 media, was specifically designed for industrial liquid coatings such as water-based or solvent-based paints.
Expert advice
Melt blowing (melt-blown process): A manufacturing method for producing micro- and nanofibers, in which a melted polymer is extruded through small nozzles surrounded by high-velocity blowing gas.
VisClear fibers are continuously melt-blown onto a central support core without the need for binders, resins, or lubricants.
Since the matte black paint is more viscous due to the addition of adjuvants, we adjusted the filtration threshold from 125 µm to 150 µm to ensure the same filtration quality.
The advantage of shifting the filtration threshold is to increase the porosity of the filter cartridge and therefore its capacity to retain agglomerates, which is essential in our client’s process.
The result observed by our client was an extension of filter cartridge life from 2 to 5 days. Qualitatively, agglomerates and grains were no longer visible or perceptible to the touch.
We also supplied the same type of VisClear filter cartridge for varnish and metallic black, using the same filtration thresholds as before: 25 µm and 100 µm.
The client expressed satisfaction after observing an overall improvement in the purity of the deposited varnish and paint.
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