The distance between Australia and Switzerland hasn’t stopped Sefar from taking its manufacturing technology up a notch with filter media solutions that address today’s challenges.
When it comes to climate change, coal miners are pushed into a state of kaizen, a Japanese term that creates a culture where companies benefit from continuous improvement of all functions.
Kaizen is not purely about a switch to electric equipment or renewable energy, but also sustainable practices in minerals processing.
After all, the environmental friendliness of every process counts towards a company’s low carbon economy, an idea that is still far-fetched to some.
A coal producer in New South Wales managed to achieve this improvement while experiencing a lift in production.
The company made use of ready-to-use filter belts that were developed by Switzerland-headquartered Sefar for tailings dewatering applications.
This move eliminated the company’s downtime as the belts lasted longer than the previously-used products whilst allowing the coal miner to achieve its target levels of cake moisture content and increase capacity.
“We often talk about total cost of ownership, taking into consideration the initial cost of the product, plus factors such as a reduction in downtime due to an increase in service life and efficiency improvements in the overall filtration process”, Sefar Oceania Minerals market manager Max Riboni says.
“In this case, the coal producer was able to reduce the number of use fewer belts, due to an increase in service life and throughput. This also helped to reduce the downtime and service costs significantly.”
Sefar provides customised filtration solutions for all main types of filtration equipment used in the coal industry, and it is able to do so due to its ownership of technologies that play a vital part in the product manufacturing process.
In fact, technology development has been the biggest driver at Sefar throughout its 190-year history, according to Riboni.
“Sefar continuously invests in innovation and Research and Development (R&D) to be able to offer competitive, tailor-made solutions based on the customer’s requirements,” he says.
“Sefar produces technical fabrics from start to finish. Only Sefar controls the entire process, vertically integrated, from polymer to yarn, to weaving, finishing and fabricating the final filter product.”
This allows Sefar to be fully in control of the product quality and being able to offer a consistent product quality.
With fabrication plants and a fully integrated supply chain across 26 countries, Sefar is now the leader in monofilament filter media manufacturing. Its cloths are a top performer in the areas of separation efficiency, residual cake moisture and abrasion resistance.
“We help our customers to be successful and competitive in their market, leveraging on our strong technical knowledge. The members of the global minerals core team meet on a regular basis and exchange experience and knowledge amongst the team,” Riboni says.
Sefar’s filter media solutions are today used to coal, alumina, copper, gold and lithium mineral processing plants, to name a few.
Companies can use Sefar fabrics in both fine and tailings dewatering, whether it be applied to a rotary disc filter, filter press, belt press filter, rotary drum filter or horizontal vacuum belt filter.
“With the atmosphere surrounding the coal industry right now, coal producers are required to meet certain emissions standards,” Riboni says.
“We’re working in conjunction with our customers to try and achieve their key performance indicators with materials and product designs that are more durable, increase efficiency levels and lower the overall footprint.”
Sefar Oceania has been established in 1968. Its six sales region cover Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Rim.
Sefar locally stocks an extensive range of products in their Sydney, Perth and Auckland warehouses to service their customers and reduce their needs and costs of on-site inventory.
“Coal, as far as the environment is concerned, is still going to play big part in energy supply for many years to come,” Riboni concludes.
“We are determined to do our part to make coal production as efficient and clean as possible and to help our customers and the world to reduce the carbon footprint.”
This article also appears in the April edition of Australian Mining.