KNF and Environmental Protection
Sustainability is an operating principle which is on everyone’s mind in the current day and age. The question is how much a system can cope with in the long run without breaking down. It may sound like a modern idea, but the concept of sustainability dates back to 1713. The protection of the environment and a focus on the sustainable use of resources are already essential elements of KNF’s processes and products back in the 20th century.
Powerful and reliable pumps are vital in environmental engineering. Air pollution measurements are taken using a KNF diaphragm gas pump as early as the 1970s. The KNF diaphragm pump N 26 is specially developed for the German Federal Environment Agency in the 1980s. Today, this pump is just one of many KNF systems used to benefit the environment, for instance for measuring fine particulates and emissions or the oxygen content of rivers.
Environmental protection through the years: At the beginning of the 1980s, the role of KNF’s diaphragm pumps in keeping nuclear power stations safe and thus protecting the environment gets explicitly lauded. In the new millennium, KNF products also feature in systems that convert exhaust heat into electricity, and our gas pumps are employed in Canadian fuel cell motors that drive Chinese busses. KNF is also a pioneer when it comes to more immediate environmental protection: A KNF compressor is used aboard a research aircraft, which collects air samples around the world for climate change research. At the South Pole, where an autonomous Brazilian research module collects measurement data to analyze the composition of the atmosphere by filtering aerosols from the air and the snow, pumps have to manage under temperature conditions similar to those in a deep freezer. This sophisticated task is carried out by KNF pumps.
Since 2014, some Google Street View cars have been equipped with an analytical system developed by Aerosol d.o.o. which uses a KNF diaphragm pump to collect aerosols. This allows scientists to analyze fine particulate air pollution. The same manufacturer also has systems which have been taking measurements in the Amazon since 2015. The Amazon rainforest around Manaus is one of the rare pockets of nature that are still largely untouched. The atmosphere there exhibits particular properties which provide researchers with groundbreaking insights, thus allowing for improved climate models. The measuring station sits above the canopy at a height of 325 meters above the ground and uses an extremely durable and completely maintenance-free KNF N 86 diaphragm gas pump, which KNF engineers have modified for this application.
And that’s where it all comes together, because as you may remember, the N 26 pump was first produced for the German Federal Environment Agency in the last millennium …
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