SKF announced Sept. 1 that it completed the acquisition of Efolex AB, a manufacturer of Europafilter-branded industrial lubrication and oil filtration systems.
Efolex, which is based in Gothenburg, Sweden, and has 10 employees, offers offline filtration systems used in process manufacturing and energy industries.
According to the Europafilter website, its oil purification system uses a capillary filtration process to capture harmful microparticles in used oil, while also capturing water and salt from the oil to prevent oxidation and corrosion. Its systems consist of offline units, which means that a small amount of oil is taken from a tank or continuously bypassed from a main ring line, cleaned in the system then returned as clean oil into the oil system or machine.
Oil volume and viscosity determines the number of housings needed for proper cleaning efficiency. The system is used in a variety of industries and application areas, including manufacturing, marine, energy, defense, mining and construction sectors.
“In addition to being an interesting stand-alone product, the Europafilter technology is a good strategic fit with SKF RecondOil’s Double Separation Technology offer and will widen our overall lubrication management capabilities,” Thomas Fröst, SKF’s president, industrial technologies, said in a press release.
According to SKF’s website, its RecondOil technology is designed to provide optimized regeneration of industrial oil through a stand-alone system in which used oil is collected and transported to a Double Separation Technology processing plant for reconditioning. The system, known as DST, is used for cleaning and regenerating highly contaminated and high viscosity oil in industrial processes. The system is used to regenerate the oil repeatedly, removing the need to discard and replace it.
SKF, which is also based in Gothenburg, offers both industrial and mobile central lubrication solutions. Central lubrication systems can be used in machine lines, manufacturing plants, ships, oil and gas production facilities, on trains and in wind energy farms.
SKF is a global supplier of products, solutions and services involving bearings, seals, lubrication systems and services. The company, which has more than 40,000 employees, is represented in more than 130 countries and has about 17,000 distributor locations worldwide.