Built to hold fine dust, not just to catch it
PureFibe™ Composite Filtration combines a fine-fibre filtration layer with a protective mesh and a support layer. The material is supplied flat or formed into pleated elements, so that even a small machine gets a large working surface. This page explains what each part does and what the rating means.
Three layers, one job
The composite is a sandwich. On the outside, a polyamide mesh gives the pleats their shape and protects the media from handling and from coarse debris. Behind it sits the fine-fibre filtration layer, where fine dust is captured and held in the depth of the material rather than on its surface. A support layer carries the whole structure and keeps each pleat open while air flows through.
Each layer is there because the others need it. Fine fibres on their own would collapse and clog; a mesh on its own would stop nothing of consequence. Together they let a small, compact element do the work of a much larger filter.
Pleated for surface area
The amount of media matters as much as its quality. Air moving slowly through a large surface meets less resistance than the same air forced through a small one. More surface also means more room to hold dust before airflow starts to drop.
Where the housing allows, PureFibe™ is pleated to pack that surface into a compact shape, as a cylinder, a ring or a panel. Reinforcement ribs run across the pleats to keep them evenly spaced, so the whole surface stays in use instead of pleats pressing together as the filter loads. Where a machine pulls air through a flat area, the material is supplied flat, with the mesh and support layer giving it the stiffness to sit in the housing.
This is also why a tiny filter with a dramatic efficiency label deserves a careful look. Efficiency describes what the media stops; the area decides how much air the machine can still move through it. More on what to check in a dust collector.
What “≥ 99.5 % at 0.3 µm” means
A filter rating is only meaningful when the efficiency and the particle size are stated together. “99.5 %” on its own says nothing; “99.5 % at 0.3 µm” says a great deal.
Fibre filters catch particles in two main ways. Larger particles have momentum, so they cannot follow the air around a fibre and collide with it. Very small particles move randomly, so they wander into fibres by diffusion. Around 0.3 µm, neither effect is strong, and a filter is at its weakest. That is why serious filter testing is done at this size and why a figure quoted there is a worst case.
Respirable nail dust sits mostly between 0.8 and 2.5 µm, several times larger than the rating point. PureFibe™ captures at least 99.5 % of 0.3 µm particles; the particles that matter in nail work are captured more effectively still.
The same logic cuts the other way. A single class label printed on a box, with no particle size and no explanation of how the machine is built, tells you less than it appears to. We prefer to show the figure, the size and the construction, and let you judge.
Filter and hold
Capturing a particle is only half the task. In a working dust collector the air keeps moving, the filter keeps loading, and a material that collects dust on its surface can release it again or lose airflow quickly. PureFibe™ is designed to hold fine dust inside the depth of the media, helping keep it from returning to the working zone and keeping the element useful for longer.
The composite also partially absorbs the odours produced during a service. It is a particle filter first, and we describe the odour effect as what it is: a useful reduction, not elimination.
Technical summary
| Technology | PureFibe™ Composite Filtration |
|---|---|
| Filtration efficiency | ≥ 99.5 % at 0.3 µm |
| Design focus | Respirable nail dust, including the 0.8–2.5 µm fraction |
| Construction | Multi-layer composite: polyamide protective mesh, fine-fibre filtration layer, 50 g/m² support layer |
| Forms | Flat media and panels; pleated cartridges, rings and custom geometries with reinforcement ribs, frames, end caps or foam seals as the housing requires |
| Odour | Partial absorption of procedure odours |
| Applications | Dust collectors, extraction units, vacuum cleaners and air-cleaning equipment where fine dust must be captured and held. First developed for professional manicure and pedicure work. |
Filtration figures refer to the flat filter material under laboratory test conditions, in its initial unloaded state. The performance of a finished element in use depends on the airflow, housing and seal of the device it is fitted to.
How to read a filter figure
Established filter-media makers publish the same handful of facts on every datasheet. They are the facts that let a buyer compare one material with another, and they are the ones to ask any supplier for. Here is what each tells you.
Efficiency with a particle size
A percentage on its own cannot be checked. A percentage at a stated size can. Ask what size the figure was measured at and whether it was measured on the flat material or on the finished filter.
The test behind it
A credible figure names the test aerosol, the air speed through the material and the method or instrument. Those conditions change the result, which is why they belong next to the number.
Resistance to airflow
Every filter slows the air that passes through it. Efficiency says what the material stops; resistance says how much air the machine can still move. One without the other is half a specification.
Media area and construction
The layers of the material and the way an element is formed show how much working surface it really has and how it is built to keep that surface open.
Material, not machine
A figure for the filter material is not a figure for the dust collector. How much dust a machine removes from a room depends on its airflow and on how well the element is sealed in the housing, and that can only be shown by testing the whole device.
What we publish
The efficiency and particle size, the design focus, the layer construction, the forms the material is made in, and the limits of what the figures mean.
Questions about the material?
We are happy to discuss test data, the forms the material can take, and PureFibe™ media for your own product.