"We are here to assist you for better understanding of UF System working in your CED paint line. Important information mentioned in this article will help you to know more about your UltraFiltration (UF) system".

UF Element

In a UF Element there is a thin polymer film is used to remove water from E-coat bath to rinse the ware. The rinse water ultimately returns to the E-Coat bath so very little paint is wasted. The UF membrane has small regular size pores that allow water, solves and neutralisers to pass through while blocking much larger paint solids.

UF Element Types

The Spiral UF element configuration is the most common used today. In the past other geometries and materials such as: tube, hollow fibre, plate & frame and ceramic UF types were used. 

UF Rinse Stages

Generally there are 3 rinse stages, one of which is a dip and the others are a spray (as shown in above image). Some systems use a DI final rinse or an EDRO system to complete the rinsing. Grey colored E-coat paint is generally a little bit easier to produce.

Permeate Requirement

Use 2 liters of permeate to rinse each 1 m^2 of ware surface area.

Permeate Requirement = Painted Through-Put (PTP) multiplied by 2 liters/m^2.

Example: PTP is 30 m^2/min

Permeate Flow = 30 m^2/min x 2 l/m^2 = 60 l/min

UF System Parts

A UF system consists of: supply pump, duplex pre-filter system, UF Skid (with the UF elements, and some system to rinse and clean the UF membrane). The illustration above shows a double sided UF skid with 16 UF Elements.

EDRO System

EDRO System is being used as an alternative to DI water because it can save on DI water and waste water disposal costs plus it can increase the E-coat paint transfer efficiency by more than 99.8% percentage points in many situations.