IMERYS is the world’s leading manufacturer of filtration aids from perlite and diatomaceous earth (DE).
With nearly a century of production experience and technical expertise, IMERYS filtration aids offer unparalleled flexibility and cost-effectiveness across a wide range of filtration applications.
Today, IMERYS manufactures and supplies more than 80 different European perlite and DE grades with permeabilities that meet virtually all filtration requirements in industrial, pharmaceutical, and food and beverage applications.
What is perlite?
Perlite is made from soft alumino silicate rock that expands rapidly when heated as the water in its structure turns to steam. This expanded structure is then milled to the desired particle size distribution to make various grades of filter aid products. High permeability grades for high solid content or “rough” filtration; low permeability grades for low solid or high clarity “fine” filtration.
All are inert and provide a natural and sustainable filtration medium. Perlite filter aids are very light in density, making them exceptional in their capacity to retain large quantities of suspended solids in a filter cake without blocking.
What is DE?
DE is a remarkable natural product composed of the fossilised remains of aquatic algae, or diatoms, which were deposited on lake beds and the ocean floor some millions of years ago. With time, the diatom skeletons became agglomerated to form a light and porous rock referred to as diatomite or kieselgühr.
These remains are virtually pure silica, an inert and insoluble mineral. Each diatom has an elaborate skeleton permeated by many small holes. It is this structure that holds the key to its unsurpassed properties for removing a wide variety of suspended solids when used as a filter aid. The efficiency is particularly noticeable when filtering liquids that contain very fine hazes or when needing a high clarity filtrate, for example during pre-bottling final filtration for juices and beers. Different grades of perlite and DE filter aids are available to ensure a complete range of filtration capabilities.
Food & Beverage
The Celite® DE, Europerl®, and Harborlite® perlite filter aids, as well as IMERYS’s FibraCel® precoating grades, provide superior filtration performance in beer, juices, wine, sugar syrups, and edible oils. Their multiple grades ensure optimal filtration performance and the flexibility required when filtering natural raw materials, where quality can vary with the harvest.
Pharma & Biotech
IMERYS’s advanced mineral range of ultra-high purity Celpure® and AW Celite® NF grades is designed for the production of pharmaceuticals and high-purity products in accordance with cGMP practices. This is supplemented by specialized adsorbent grades of synthetic silicates for use as chemical or enzyme carriers, tableting agents, excipients, and endotoxin removal agents.
Industrial Applications
IMERYS’s filtration aids are also effectively used in multiple industrial applications, such as chemical processing, mineral and lubrication oil production (e.g., metallic foils, bearings, etc.), cooling liquid filtration, and biodiesel purification, among others.
Wine
Bringing innovation to the wine market, the ImerVin™ range of customized filter aids is designed to offer solutions to needs identified by oenologists. One example is ImerVin™ Efficace, a high-performance filter aid designed for the filtration of grape juice (musts) during the vintage period. It is proven to be effective at lower dosing rates, improves filtration capacity, and reduces product losses (juice) in the filter cake.
Beer
In addition to “standard” grades of DE and perlite filter aids for precoating and bodyfeed, IMERYS has developed Celite Cynergy®, a beer protein stabilizer. It is engineered to replace silica gels but with optimal filtration characteristics that allow for longer filter runs and lower dosing rates, while still ensuring full shelf-life stability of the filtered beer.
Biofuels
Bringing innovation to the biodiesel and oleofuel pretreatment markets, IMERYS has developed its Cynersorb® Filterable Adsorbents range of specialized soap and metal adsorbents that have optimal filtration characteristics. The range provides a cost-effective alternative to the silica gels and synthetic magnesium silicates currently used, thereby allowing for a significant increase in capacity or a reduction in filtration costs.
