SKF buys Europafilter lube filtration manufacturer

Efolex makes the EF2100 oil cleaning system.

Swedish bearing manufacturer SKF has purchased Efolex AB, another Swedish company that makes the Europafilter-branded industrial lubrication and oil filtration systems. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Efolex produces offline filtration systems used in process manufacturing and energy industries. The company has about 10 employees.

Thomas Fröst, president, industrial technologies at SKF said the acquisition is a good supplement to its current line of services. “In addition to being an interesting stand-alone product, the Europafilter technology is a good strategic fit with RecondOil’s double separation technology offer and will widen our overall lubrication management capabilities.”

RecondOil was added to the SKF portfolio in 2019 in an effort to help customers reduce the environmental impact of their operations. RecondOil’s patented double separation technology enables sustainable use of industrial oil. The technology is delivered in service- or fee-based contracts that strengthen SKF’s lubrication management and rotating equipment performance offer.

Efolex makes the EF2100 oil cleaning system, which removes water and solid contaminants from oil systems. The EF2100 oil cleaning systems (OCS) are offline units which means that a small amount of oil is taken from a tank or continuously bypassed from a main ring line, cleaned and then returned into the oil system.

The OCS are individual circuits and will not affect any functions in the concerned oil system or machine. The standard cleaning systems consist of 1-6 cleaning housings which are connected in parallel.

Oil volume and viscosity decides the number of housings needed for a proper cleaning efficiency. Each system consist of motor with pump, oil sample valve before and after/bleed valve, drain valve, pressure gauge and armored hydraulic hoses. The components are mounted on a steel plate.

SKF products and services around the rotating shaft include bearings, seals, lubrication management, artificial intelligence and wireless condition monitoring. SKF is represented in more than 130 countries and has around 17,000 distributor locations worldwide. Its annual sales in 2020 were SEK 74852 million and the company employed 40,963 people.