The SimConDrill Project

Microplastics pollute our wastewater and the environment on a daily basis, as many sewage treatment plants are not yet designed to effectively remove these tiny plastic particles. The term microplastics refers to all plastic particles smaller than 5 mm. These can either be manufactured directly for use, e.g. in cosmetics, or arise from the decomposition of larger plastics or abrasion, such as from rubber tyres.

In 2019, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) therefore approved the SimConDrill research project, in which industry and research partners are working together on a novel, sustainable water filter. This filter uses laser-drilled micro-openings to filter particles as small as 10 micrometres out of the water.

Studies by the Fraunhofer Institute show that around 333,000 tonnes of microplastics are released in Germany every year. The health and ecological consequences have not yet been fully researched, but due to their small size, microplastic particles can sometimes pass through sewage treatment plants and enter rivers with the purified water. However, clean drinking water is essential for the environment and health.

The Challenge

The major challenge in this project is that the filter to be developed must reliably filter very small particles from large quantities of water. This requires a filter with a high flow rate, i.e. one that has as many very small holes as possible. To achieve this, the material to be drilled should be as thin as possible. The filter must be mechanically stable so that it can be used over the long term with the intended self-cleaning process. To this end, the material thickness must not be too thin. The project must find the optimum solution and develop a drilling process for creating the holes.

Another challenge is that the holes must all have very uniform diameters. The holes must not be larger than specified, otherwise larger particles cannot be reliably retained. At the same time, the holes must not be too small, otherwise the flow rate will be too low.

The solution approach

LaserJob's special role lies in the practical implementation and scaling of the laser drilling process. In collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT, an ultra-short pulse drilling process was developed which made it possible to produce high-precision laser-drilled filter films that reliably filter even the smallest microplastic particles out of large quantities of water – a technological breakthrough for sustainable water management. The project resulted in a filter with a total of 59 million holes with a diameter of only 10 µm in stainless steel foils with a thickness of 200 µm.

The filter modules were installed in patented cyclone filter systems from KLASS-Filter GmbH for further testing and tested under real conditions.

As further components of the project, simulations of the machining strategies were carried out at Fraunhofer ILT in collaboration with OptiY, and online diagnostics for quality assurance were developed in collaboration with LUNOVU.

International award

The SimConDrill project was nominated for the international Greentech Award 2020 without submitting an application and was honoured as one of the three best innovations.

The jury of the renowned Greentech Festival in Berlin, initiated by Formula 1 world champion Nico Rosberg, thus recognises the sustainable approach and forward-looking significance of SimConDrill as an innovative solution for green technologies.

Futher informations

The SimConDrill joint project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). It is part of the BMBF funding measure ‘SME Innovative: Resource Efficiency and Climate Protection’ in the technology and application area ‘Sustainable Water Management’

Project management:

Andrea Lanfermann M. Sc.

Fraunhofer-Institut für Lasertechnik ILT
Steinbachstr. 15
52074 Aachen

Other project partners:

Klass-Filter GmbH

Lunovu GmbH

OptiY GmbH

Project organiser:

PTKA Karlsruhe (Karlsruher Institut für Technologie)