Pneumafil began in this plant on
Wilkinson Boulevard in Charlotte, NC

Pneumafil's revolutionary Automatic Panel Filter replaced a textile industry standard, as it required drastically less floorspace and reduced energy consumption

A thin-film evaporator is an integral component of this LCI skid system

Menardi manufacturing plant and employees

MikroPul invented and patented the pulse-jet dust collector

Our History

Environmental Filtration Technologies, previously known as Beacon Industrial Group, was founded with the purchase of The Pneumafil Group in 1998, which at the time included Pneumafil Corporation and LCI Corporation. Shortly afterwards, MikroPul and Menardi were acquired to broaden the air filtration product line being sold by Pneumafil.

Pneumafil Corporation, and what later became the Pneumafil Group, were originally established by two Swiss brothers, Hans and Walter Bechtler, who formed the company to manufacture specialized technology for the textile industry. Their grandson, Andreas Bechtler, would later lead the companies and become a prominent Charlotte business man and recognized artist and art collector.

Pneumafil started in 1946 in an old machine shop building on Wilkinson Boulevard in Charlotte, North Carolina, a site expanded until the late 1980s when all Charlotte facilities were permanently established on Chesapeake Drive. The Bechtlers were entrepreneurs who perfected and successfully marketed a suction system for collecting broken ends from yarn-spinning frames. As the U.S. textile industry expanded after World War II, Pneumafil's success grew. Pneumafil's systems "received broad recognition as being essential to modern-mill operation," according to a Charlotte News article from the early 50s. By 1956, the company had equipped 10 million spindles.

As the textile industry continued growing over the next decades, Pneumafil developed additional textile air filtration and conditioning products, including a number of innovative, patented devices; the company was known for spending a higher percentage of sales on R&D than competitors. Pneumafil also began expanding into other markets. The Metal Products Division was begun in the early 1970s to provide high quality, fabricated metal products for the military and has won many awards from defense contractors. Pneumafil also began offering filtration products for other markets including woodworking, furniture, grain, and coal as well as the power generation industry with inlet air filters for gas turbines.

LCI Corporation, originally known as Luwa Corporation, was founded in 1961 (currently celebrating its 50th anniversary) in the U.S. by parent company Luwa AG, which was headquartered in Zurich and was also part of the Bechtler organization. The company was founded to bring European high quality, complex-technology equipment to the U.S.

Luwa introduced the first commercially available thin-film evaporators. LCI / Luwa evaporators are of such high quality that many are still operating after forty plus years. LCI continues to sell evaporation / distillation and microfiltration technology to a range of industries including chemical, pharmaceutical, specialty polymers, food, alternative fuels, etc. During the late 80s, LCI expanded its product line with solids forming technology manufactured in Japan. The company also provides specialized feeders.

Menardi has been producing industrial fabric filters since 1913. What began as woven fabrics made of horsehair for cottonseed oil filtration has evolved into high temperature filters for power generation, steel, cement, and other heavy industrial production. Located in Trenton, South Carolina, Menardi's manufacturing plant is vertically integrated in the production of fiberglass textiles for hot gas filtration, giving us the unique advantage as the only company in the western hemisphere which can coat its own glass fabrics.

MikroPul began in the late 1920s in Linden, New Jersey. First known as Metals Disintegrating and then Pulverizing Machinery, the company name was changed to MikroPul due to the huge success of the pulse jet collectors it invented and patented. While pulse jet collectors continue to be a standard for industrial air filtration, MikroPul has engineered and developed a broad range of air pollution control technology, becoming known globally for its expertise with air scrubbers and cyclones, among other products. The company established offices in locations throughout the world, including Australia, Canada, Germany, Mexico, and France (known there as Filtex and Filter-Media). MikroPul headquarters was moved from Summit, NJ, to Charlotte when the company was acquired.

Environmental Filtration Technologies continues to provide leadership and to be an innovator, having received 22 patents in the U.S. and 79 corresponding patents around the globe since 1985.