Stainless steel fiber sintered felt is a porous metal material sintered by stainless steel fiber through a special process. It has a three-dimensional mesh interconnected pore structure, combining the high strength and high temperature resistance of metal materials with the filtering and separation functions of porous materials.
By controlling the fiber diameter, bulk density, and sintering process, this material can obtain products with different porosities (usually 30-80%) and filtration accuracy (0.1-100μm), showing irreplaceable application value in many industrial fields.
Core applications in the chemical and petroleum industries
In modern chemical production processes, stainless steel fiber sintered felt has become a key filtration material. Its typical applications include the catalyst recovery system in PTA (purified terephthalic acid) production, which requires the material to withstand working conditions of 120℃ and 4MPa, while maintaining a retention rate of more than 99.9% for 3-5μm palladium carbon catalyst particles.
In the chlor-alkali industry, sintered felt used for secondary refining of brine needs to withstand pH fluctuations of 2-11 and harsh environments with chloride ion concentrations of 200g/L. Compared with traditional filter cloth, its service life can be extended by 5-8 times, greatly reducing the replacement frequency.
The petroleum industry applies it to natural gas purification systems. In an acidic environment containing H₂S (concentration can reach 5%), 316L sintered felt shows excellent resistance to stress corrosion cracking. With special surface passivation treatment, the equipment can operate continuously for more than 3 years.
High-end applications in the field of energy and environmental protection
Coal-fired power plants use stainless steel fiber sintered felt as high-temperature flue gas filtration media. Its unique gradient pore structure design (surface 5μm, middle layer 20μm, bottom layer 50μm) achieves a perfect combination of low resistance (<1500Pa) and high efficiency (PM2.5 capture rate>99.99%).
In the field of waste incineration, sintered felt with special surface modification can simultaneously achieve the dual functions of dioxin catalytic decomposition (decomposition efficiency>90%) and heavy metal adsorption (Hg capture rate>85%).
In the field of fuel cells, a new type of gas diffusion layer has been developed by using its conductive properties (resistivity <10^-4Ω·m). When the porosity is controlled at 70-75%, the battery performance is improved by more than 20%.
Sanitary applications in the medical food industry
The pharmaceutical industry places extremely high demands on the application of stainless steel fiber sintered felt. When used for sterilization and filtration of biological preparations, it must pass a strict integrity test (bubble point value ≥ 0.21MPa) and comply with FDA 21CFR177.1520 standards.
A vaccine manufacturer uses a double-layer sintered felt structure with a precision of 0.2μm. While maintaining a sterilization efficiency of 99.99%, the flux reaches 500L/(m²·h).
The application of the food and beverage industry pays more attention to hygienic design. The beer final filtration system adopts a fully automatic CIP cleaning structure with a surface roughness Ra<0.8μm, which meets the requirements of 3-A Sanitary Standards.
In dairy processing, sintered felt that can withstand 150°C steam sterilization can be reused more than 300 times, and the life cycle cost is only 1/5 of that of disposable filter membranes.
Special applications in the aerospace field
The lubricating oil system of aviation engines uses a multi-layer composite sintered felt filter element, which maintains a stable β value (filtration ratio) ≥ 200 in the temperature range of -54°C to 200°C. Application data of a certain type of turbofan engine shows that the sintered felt filter element with a new gradient density design has a 30% increase in flow capacity while meeting the 15μm filtration accuracy.
effectively alleviating the problem of oil line pressure fluctuations during low-temperature startup. The spacecraft propulsion system uses special alloy (such as Inconel 600) sintered felt as a fuel filter, which can still ensure reliable gas-liquid separation performance in a microgravity environment.
