For Immediate Release-

Sanford, FL, May 10, 2007  - Argonide Corporation, a Florida based company, has announced the award of a Phase III SBIR (Small business grant) to develop a low pressure drop HEPA.  HEPA (High Efficiency Particle Air) filters are defined as those capable of removing 99.97% of particles that are 0.3 microns in size.  That size is the most penetrating into the deep portions of the lung.  Applications for HEPA include the protection of our military personnel from attack by biological agents, in homeland security, in hospitals, in pharmaceutical manufacture, in microelectronics manufacture, and for achieving acceptable indoor air quality, particularly in the homes of asthmatics sufferers.  HEPA filters while effective in removing small particles,  have a high initial pressure drop, and the pressure drop increases markedly as the filters load with dust and dirt.  High pressure drop results in a high energy cost.  Estimates show that 80% of the life cycle cost of operating a HEPA filter is for energy, and only 20% for the initial cost of the filter.

Experimental work done by Argonide in the previous SBIR grant was aimed at modifying media that had been developed for water filtration so that it had sufficiently low enough pressure drop to operate as an air filter.  We achieved that and showed that at equivalent pressure drop the filtration efficiency was greater than 99.995%.  But what was more striking was that we could place a thin layer of our media in front of the HEPA and substantially reduce the increase in pressure drop with increasing loads of dirt.  Projections showed that we could increase the life of the HEPA by 5 to 7 times by using a NanoCeram^® type of prefilter.   We also learned that the new media was more capable of removing aerosolized bacteria from air streams at high humidity than commercial HEPA.

The new Phase III contract is aimed at reducing the pressure drop by 50% as compared to HEPA, and also to demonstrate substantial benefits in reducing the pressure drop by using NanoCeram^® as a prefilter for emplaced HEPA's. One of the tasks in the new program relates to the integration of powdered activated carbon into the media.  This task will take advantage of a new high efficiency activated carbon filter developed for water purification.   This new media (NanoCeram-PAC™) has been demonstrated to have an improvement in removing a soluble contaminant (iodine), under flowing conditions, by a factor of 800 greater than commercially available filter media that use granular activated carbon.  The powdered form of carbon has a greater surface to volume ratio, permitting more rapid adsorption of soluble contaminants.  Such powder cannot be held within non-woven (paper-like) structures without its being washed out, unless binders are use to contain the carbon, and such binders blind or inactivate the carbon.  In water, NanoCeram-PAC shows particulate retention and dirt holding capacity equivalent to that of NanoCeram^®, and at flowrates equal to or greater than NanoCeram.

According to Fred Tepper, President of Argonide, "the potential of having a single filter media capable of high efficiency for both biological pathogens and chemical toxins will allow the development of superior chemical/biological filters for the military and homeland security.  Such media will also have application for air purification in the passenger compartments of automobiles, in airplane cabins and in indoor air filters".

Argonide manufactures filter cartridges for water purification.  The Ahlstrom Corporation has an exclusive world-wide license to manufacture and sell the media for air, water and other applications.  Because of their keen interest in developing advanced air filter media, Ahlstrom is contributing effort and materials to the new contract

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