What is a Sintered Metal Filter?

A sintered metal filter is a filter engineered using the sintering technology. Sintered metal filters designed with perfect combination of metal membrane materials, pore structure, composition, and pressure strength last longer and filter consistently over the time. Variants of such filters offer compatibility and are designed for various harsh operation environments like high pressure, high temperature, corrosive chemicals, to name a few.

What is Sintering?

Sintering is a technology that fuses particles together by using heat and pressure without melting the metals. Various metals are sintered to engineer filter equipment, elements and different type of cartridges with a variety of pore size structure and composition.

Why Sintered Metal Filters?

Sintered metal filters are robust and exhibit excellent performance for separation of particulate matter from either liquid or gas process streams. The filter media is fabricated from metal power or fiber and sintered to form filter elements. These filter elements can withstand higher temperature as compared to other filter elements. Along with high temperature resistance, corrosion is also other criteria where sintered elements prove superior. Additionally, the cost of ownership of sintered filtersintered filter systems is considerably low as they can be cleaned via ‘blowback cleaning’ multiple times and reused with the same filtration efficiency.

The sintered filter systems and elements are critical in achieving effective particulate removal to protect equipment, meet environmental regulations and achieve successful cost-effective filtration operations.

Types of Materials used for Sintered Filter Development:

• Stainless steels (304L, 316L)
• Titanium and its alloys
• Nickel
• MoneKK) (Ni-Cu alloy)
• Inconel® (Ni-Cr-Fe alloy)
• Iron and aluminum alloy
• Hastelloy ®B,C and X

What Are Sintered Porous Stainless Steel Filters (Porostar)?

There are all kinds of woven wire mesh types out there. There are different opening sizes, weave patterns, and even alloys that can be used to establish different weave structures. Each of those factors impacts how the wire mesh functions, what filtration level it operates at and which industry or function it's best suited for.

Using wire mesh for filtration purposes is one of the most intricate and technical uses we see with our customers. Each individual opening in the mesh is important, as well as the durability of the mesh as a whole.

When using woven wire to filter liquids, your opening size may be minuscule and even invisible to the naked eye. This means the material itself is very flexible and delicate.
In order to use a material like this in a system where high pressure is involved, you would need to have some type of protective layer(s) added to your filter.

This is where Porostar comes in. Porostar can ensure that your filtration layer is secure and accurate while still being able to withstand all kinds of conditions like high-pressure, harsh environments, or even welding.

In this article, we are going to talk about what Porostar is, who is is best suited for and how much it can cost you.

What is Porostar?

Porostar is W.S.Tyler's line of sintered porous stainless steel filters. It is multiple layers of woven wire filter mesh sinter bonded together to create a more stable filter plate with predetermined filtration properties.

The original opening size of the mesh remains the same even after the diffusion process.

Porostar can be purchased in sheets for your own use or it can be purchased as a customized filter. Buying in sheets can be a risky option if you plan to manipulate or form the Porostar yourself. There is a high risk of damaging the openings if not done correctly.

Typically, a customer would supply their own drawings for their filter element and our engineering team will work with them to find the best solution for their application.

Porostar can be created in a filter range of 1 - 1000 micron.

Below is an image of some capabilities for customizations that can be done with Porostar, but again this is very specific to your individual process.

If you are looking for more information on all the things we can do with woven wire you can check out our Value Added Services page to get all the details.

Sintered Metal Filter

How Does Porostar Work?

Porostar is typically produced in 3-6 layers. Each layer outside of the main “Filtration” layer is used for a significant purpose: protection, support for the system, or as a drainage layer.

The most impressive thing about Porostar is the welding/sintering process that is used to combine each layer of mesh. This process seamlessly diffuses all wires together but does not alter or destroy the filtration characteristics of each individual layer.

1. Protection Layer: Protection of the filter layer against physical influences

2. Filter Layer: Selected according to the pore size

3. Protection Layer: Protects the filtration layer from possible deformation under high pressure 

4. Support layer: Makes wire cloth laminate stable and improves the welding characteristics

5. Support layer 90: Makes wire cloth laminate stable and improves the welding characteristics

6. Drainage layer: improves the quantity of the filter capacity

How Much Does Porostar Cost?

As with any wire mesh product, there are a lot of factors that go into the cost.

If you are buying material alone your cost will be less then if you are buying the material formed as a customized filter of some kind.

When buying strictly material, you can expect to pay around $75/sq. foot.

For the cost of Porostar as a fully manufactured filter, Lets look at a specific example: 

In the picture above, this filter is built specifically for a harsh environment where the filter will be under a lot of pressure. This particular filter is 3 layers plus a protective perforated plate outside layer.

The 3 different layers of the wire mesh first have to be bonded together. Next, the new material was rolled into this cylindrical shape and seam welded.

Then, the support layer (the perforated plate) is used as a protective layer and is installed on the outside of the filter. Finally, the end rings are then installed on either end of the filter.

In the case of this filter, you could expect to pay around $1,000. Typically we aren’t producing these types of filters on a large scale (100 plus), so you have to keep in mind that they are labor intense.

To Sum It Up

Sintered porous stainless steel filters, such as W.S. Tyler's Porostar filter mesh, is a great solution for fluidizing purposes or filtration. It is durable enough to withstand all kinds of conditions yet precise enough to get you the exact level of separation you need in your system.

If you are looking for more information on woven wire options or costs, you can check out our Guide to Woven Wire Mesh for more detail.

If you have any questions about Porostar, or other meshes of ours, reach out to us and we’d be happy to work through them with you.

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For more Porous Metal Filters information, please contact us. We will provide professional answers.