Advances showcased at Filtech 2026 demonstrate filtration’s growing role in emissions reduction, carbon capture, clean transportation and PFAS removal.
The extent to which the filtration industry has positively influenced emissions reductions in Europe over the past 25 years was underlined at Filtech 2026 held recently in Cologne, Germany.
In a keynote presentation, Professor Laurence Le Coq of IMT Atlantique, a French engineering and research university, drew on statistics from organizations including Eurostat and the European Environment Agency to explain how the widespread implementation of Best Available Techniques (BAT), under the European Union’s Industrial Emissions Directive, has contributed to this transformation.
While attention has understandably focused on greenhouse gases, BAT has simultaneously delivered dramatic reductions in particulate matter, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and other harmful emissions, demonstrating how regulatory certainty coupled with technological innovation can reshape industrial environmental performance.
Across Europe, thousands of power stations, waste incinerators, cement plants, steelworks, refineries and chemical plants have progressively been required to adopt BAT.
Renewable Energy
According to Eurostat, the greatest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 has come from fuel combustion in the energy industries, in which emissions have fallen by 46 percent as coal-fired power generation has progressively been replaced by renewable energy sources and more efficient technologies.
Emissions from fuel combustion in manufacturing and construction have meanwhile fallen by 44 percent, reflecting improvements in industrial efficiency, the widespread adoption of BAT — including state-of-the-art, lower-pressure-drop filter systems — and a gradual shift to cleaner fuels.
Carbon Capture
The integration of carbon capture (CC) technologies into industrial plants is now putting significantly tighter requirements on upstream flue-gas cleaning performance, as explained in a presentation by Björn Karlsson of Austria-headquartered Andritz.
Fine particulate matter, submicron aerosols, acid gases and trace contaminants can negatively impact amine-based CC systems operation, solvent stability, capture efficiency and operating costs. Consequently, high-performance flue-gas cleaning and filter bags with very high separation efficiency are fundamental prerequisites to future-proof plants for carbon capture deployment.
Fabric filters combined with dry flue-gas treatment systems, such as the novel integrated desulfurization (NID) process offered by Andritz, provide a robust and proven solution to achieve ultra-low particulate emissions and stable flue-gas conditions.
Field Testing
At the AWG Wuppertal waste-to-energy plant in Germany, Andritz has performed field testing of an amine-based carbon capture pilot plant that features six boilers and a multistage flue-gas cleaning train with electrostatic precipitators — primarily for dedusting — and an Andritz NID system with integrated filters, followed by advanced stages including activated-coke (HOK) and selective catalytic reduction (SCR). The performance of these upstream systems determines the quality of the gas delivered to any downstream carbon capture unit and its performance, operating cost and maintenance.
Field experience has highlighted three dominant mechanisms by which insufficient upstream filtration affects amine capture performance.
First, submicron particles act as nuclei for aerosol formation in the absorber, enabling amine vapor and acid condensates to form droplets that are not effectively removed by demisters and can carry solvent and contaminants to the stack. Second, acidic components and halogens drive heat-stable salt formation and corrosion processes in hot, oxygen-rich solvent environments. Finally, fine particulate and metal oxides contribute to foaming and pressure-drop instabilities and increase the need for antifoam dosing and maintenance.
Overall, the testing in Wuppertal has demonstrated that investing in high-efficiency filtration is a decisive step toward reliable and economically viable carbon capture integration.
Needle Felts
Many examples of the filter media that have contributed to the progress in emissions reductions appeared in product displays at the Cologne exhibition.
Lydall Gutsche, for example, headquartered in Germany and now part of Alkegen, has pioneered the manufacture of high-performance nonwoven needle felts for applications such as waste incineration, cement production and coal-fired boilers since the 1980s.
BAT media inevitably comprise blends of individual fibers or separately functional layers, such as Lydall Gutsche’s polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and polyimide (PI) media aimed at optimizing the outlet emissions and efficiency of media in waste emissions, polyphenylene sulfide and PI for coal-fired boilers and polyacrylonitrile and polyester combinations for cement and metallurgical applications — all far outperforming single-fiber felts in high-temperature and chemically aggressive conditions.
Within its porotex® range, Lydall Gutsche has developed specific grades for modern energy-from-waste (EFW) and refuse-derived-fuel (RDF) plants for which advanced flue-gas cleaning systems are essential for neutralizing harmful gases and reducing pollutants.
High-performance bag filters play a critical role in delivering stable, compliant operations, and the company’s porotex range consists of engineered fiber blends, fine-fiber surface layers and ePTFE membrane options to lower emissions and ensure stable pressure-drop behavior and the efficient sorption of pollutant gases.
Transportation
While industrial emissions have consistently fallen across Europe, fuel-combustion emissions generated by the transportation sector have still risen by 7 percent since 1990, as the increasing demand for passenger and freight transport has largely outweighed efficiency gains.
Across the globe, for instance, about 60 million heavy-duty vehicles travel thousands of miles and most still rely on diesel for fuel.
The growing push for a fast transition to zero-emission vehicles is accelerating investments to improve technologies and infrastructure that power these big engines.
Fuel cells make ideal power sources for heavy-duty vehicles, which rely on hydrogen tanks to feed them with highly pressurized hydrogen gas. The fuel cell then converts hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity that powers the electric motor. Compared to electric batteries, the fuel cell is smaller, lighter, faster to refuel and provides more power.
A challenge here is that the oxygen needs to be completely pure so as to not damage the fuel cell catalyst, but it is taken from the outside air, which can be polluted by various gases. Hydrocarbons, sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ammonia (NH3) poison the catalyst, while particles can enter the fuel cell and foul the proton exchange membrane.
Fuel Cell Air Intake
At Filtech, Clair Prost, head of product development and technical customer service for Ahlstrom EMEA, outlined the benefits of her company’s FiltEV fuel cell air intake filter media in preventing this.
The multilayer technology has been developed to deliver the purest air for the fuel cell cathode, removing the finest airborne particles and harmful gases and protecting the catalyst. Its outer layers, activated carbon blend and particulate efficiency layer can all be modified to match specific customer specifications.
“Customization is essential for the emerging heavy-duty electric vehicle industry, where the market requirements are constantly evolving,” Prost said.
Cabin Air
Today’s cabin air intake systems must also capture a wide range of contaminants while maintaining low pressure drop and silent operation — requirements that are increasingly critical with the rise of electric vehicles. Finland-based Ahlstrom’s PurXcel™ filtration media is a low-pressure-drop solution also based on optimized carbon loading.
It can be configured as a combi-media to remove both gaseous pollutants and particulate matter in a single filter element. Its multiple adsorbent layers can be tailored to target specific contaminants, including volatile organic compounds and inorganic gases, as well as odors. A wide range of particulate efficiency layers is available, extending up to HEPA 13 to meet even the most stringent air quality requirements.
The media’s pleatability and cohesion enable higher converting efficiency, simplified filter manufacturing and waste reduction. Additionally, an optimized internal structure supports compact designs and whisper-quiet operation.
“Beyond cabin air intake, this versatile platform can be adapted to HVAC systems, fuel cell air intakes and personal protection devices, meeting the evolving needs of multiple industries,” Prost said.
Dealing With PFAS
Water treatment presents another example of filtration moving beyond traditional particle separation toward addressing entirely new classes of contaminants. An issue currently preoccupying filter makers is the removal of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from water.
PFAS are man-made fluorinated chemicals known for their useful properties such as oil, water and heat resistance and are consequently used in products like textiles, coatings and foams. There are thousands of PFAS compounds and they have spread into water sources globally. Because of their extreme stability resulting from strong molecular bonds, PFAS accumulate in the environment and living organisms over time.
PFAS contamination presents one of the most complex challenges in modern water filtration, demanding solutions that go beyond conventional carbon blocks and rigid filter designs.
In response, Germany-based Gessner has developed a filter media concept that takes a fundamentally different approach to PFAS removal and filter design with a new multilayer media designed for efficiency available in both pleated and wrapped filter formats.
Mechanisms
By integrating three complementary mechanisms — size exclusion, absorption and targeted adsorption — into a robust, self-supporting composite, Gessner’s media delivers maximized PFAS capture while protecting downstream adsorbents and extending system service life.
Designed for system-level flexibility, it can function as either an upstream PFAS pre-filter or a stand-alone PFAS remover, allowing filter manufacturers to seamlessly incorporate PFAS control into various treatment configurations.
“PFAS filtration is challenging because these forever chemicals possess incredibly strong carbon-fluorine bonds that resist natural degradation,” explained Gessner’s R&D Senior Manager Dr. Ashish Bandekar. “They are highly mobile, water-soluble and often require expensive, high-energy methods such as specialized activated carbon, reverse osmosis or resin treatments rather than standard materials. Each method, however, has its own restrictions. Filtration using carbon blocks and resins has the limitation of site blinding by other contaminants and resins also need extensive chemical flushes which can be an expensive process, while reverse osmosis is a process that is energy-intensive.”
Gessner believes its new media could provide huge advantages as a pre-filter cartridge in reverse osmosis, ion exchange, wastewater, process water treatment and groundwater remediation.
“The meltblown layers used are designed for balancing efficiency and low pressure drop and the carbon selected also has a moderate to high surface area with low pressure drop,” Bandekar said. “Operational stability is something that has been achieved after repeated testing and process optimization at multiple levels.”
Whether ensuring the reliability of carbon capture systems, protecting hydrogen fuel cells, removing persistent PFAS contaminants from water or continuing to reduce industrial emissions through ever more sophisticated filter media, advances in filtration are now determining the performance of many new technologies.
Enabling Technology
Filtration is no longer simply an environmental safeguard operating quietly in the background of industrial processes. It is increasingly an enabling technology for many of the industries driving the next phase of decarbonization and environmental protection.
Whether ensuring the reliability of carbon capture systems, protecting hydrogen fuel cells, removing persistent PFAS contaminants from water or continuing to reduce industrial emissions through ever more sophisticated filter media, advances in filtration are now determining the performance of many new technologies. Filtech 2026 reflected an industry whose influence is steadily expanding as environmental challenges become more complex and performance expectations continue to rise.
The next edition of Filtech will be held November 16-18, 2027, in Cologne.
