Case study: Purifying water with ePTFE tubing
The project: Water purification
One of our customers contacted us to produce a material which would be fluoroplastic yet porous. Using a machine to purify water, they wanted to flow some Ozone gas through a special piece of tube which would then leak out into the iron-rich water and purify it.
The solution: ePTFE Tubing
To do this, we turned to porous PTFE (ePTFE) tubing. ePTFE is made by expanding PTFE tubing carefully using a non-standard manufacturing process to create microscopic pores in the structure of the material.
Being microporous, ePTFE is significantly different to conventional PTFE tubing – the material is air-permeable, soft and flexible, and feels somewhat like smooth, spongey marshmallow to the touch. It is also chemically resistant with high linear strength, chemically inert, remains watertight at low pressure, has a low dielectric constant, and offers excellent radial expansion and UV resistance.
The result: Delivering clean, safe water
On creating this product for them, our customer successfully used the fluoroplastic, porous tubing to pipe a mixture of 10% regular air enriched with 87% oxygen and 3% ozone through water, which then bubbled out into the iron-rich water at about +0.5bar to purify it.
Air Permeating through ePTFE Tube into Water Demonstration Video
As a result, the water purification technology was shown to deliver clean, safe water cheaply and efficiently, anywhere in the world. Thanks to Adtech, this ePTFE technique now stands poised to revolutionise the entire water industry.
ePTFE’s effectiveness doesn’t end there. ePTFE material can also be adapted for us in medical devices, electronic insulators, high performance filters, and a host of other applications. It is often utilised in the form of cord, sealing tape and tubing for porous medical applications. In oil and gas, ePTFE is usefully applied to chemical pipe flanges to even out any bumps and ridges in the pipes and achieve a truer seal.
Here at Adtech, we are specialists in delivering innovative fluoropolymer solutions for your technical applications. Find out more about our range of ePTFE Tube.
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