Ztechnique Elements

It all began back in 2011 when Airtec Filtration Ltd decided to design and build our own alternative oil free elements for the Atlas Copco range of 'Z' equipment.

Considerable investment was involved in our single largest project since the companies inception back in 1987.

Forming a new company with our Asia partners we invested in moulds and rotor cutting machinery to produce prototype Ztechnique stage 3/5 size elements. These proved to be so successful we carried on designing stages 0/1/2/4/6/sizes for a complete aftermarket package we can offer oil free users.

And we are still investing in 2023 with new products including GHH range of alternative elements.

With thousands of Ztechnique new and refurbished elements operating around the World you can be assured your in safe hands with a proven alternative product, comparable performance and competitive pricing. Mark Whalley Director

Driving down the cost of oil free air...

Take a look at our rotor cutting equipment. our equipment ensures we control the quality of our rotors from the earliest stages of production.

Both Ztechnique alternative Atlas Copco 'Z' rotors and 'GHH' alternative rotors are manufactured in our facility. We don't outsource our key components ensuring 'original equipment manufacture'

Rotor Housing

Quality rotor and timing gear castings manufactured at our facility in Asia and assembled to the finished product in Merseyside UK. Quality control at every step is at the heart of our manufacturing and assembly facility's. Our engineers are passionate about building our air ends.

Quality rotor & casting coating is key to success

Our rotor and casting coating has been developed over a number of years and has culminated in a high temp resistant product that has proven to be durable in humid and salty environments. We used Teflon 'S' at the beginning but found our coating proved to be much more resilient to harsh operating environments such as Saudi Arabia where 'Aramco' tested our oil free stage 1/3 sizes for over 1 year before being satisfied we have a high qualty product at less cost than the OEM

Ensuring Quality

Quality checks at the manufacturing stage is crucial to consistency

Our rotors and castings are matched perfectly during the machining process. This ensures that the fine tolerances required are fulfilled time after time. Each element comes with a QC data sheet with build tolerances provided

When the air end arrives with Ztechnique its rotors and housing are matched together as the image shows. Then the process of preparation for rotor and housing coating begins..

Using quality seals and bearings...

We only use SKF and FAG bearings in our air end production

Our thrust and radial bearings used in our new and refurbished elements are drawn from quality manufactures of bearings such as SKF and FAG. We have spent considerable time & research ensuring our thrust bearings are extremely reliable, to this end we have chosen a double thrust bearing on the driven side of our elements rather than a single ball bearing design favoured by the OEM. Many thousand Ztechnique elements operate around the World.
Our seals assembly's have been redesigned for a much more durable floating seal design, rather than a 'solid body' seal favoured by some OEM's
With thousands of Ztechnique elements operating around the World our warranty claims for premature failure of a Ztechnique elements is extremely low. Many elements are still operating at 60,000 + plus hours in all types of environments from high ambient to 90% humidity conditions and continue to do so...

Testing every Ztechnique Element

Each Ztechnique element is fully tested

Our Merseyside UK operations centre has full testing facilities for every size element stage of Ztechnique alternative Atlas Copco Z size elements. We test both new Ztechnique elements and refurbished OEM on our dedicated test rigs and can measure power & flow for each element stage. This ensures that the customer receives an element he or she knows has been guaranteed to meet its performance. If we find any faults with our element stages during the 2 hour test they are rejected for re-working in our Merseyside air end centre. Each element is accompanied with a test certificate and install instructions ion a convenient USB stick inside the Ztechnique element crate. Should you have an issue with a Ztechnique element on start up, the chances are we can resolve the issue with a telephone or video call to analyse your running data.

The finished product

What makes our product so successful compared to others ?

Our no quibble warranty has proven to be a key to gaining our customers confidence in our product.

Our Ztechnique distributors in over 17 country's includes our largest distributor Atlas Machine Inc. in the USA has cemented our product in key accounts by virtue of its ease to acquire and install with Ztechnique fitting kits and local trained technicians. Lastly we are realistic with our pricing. We understand that alternative products have to work harder to gain market share and to that end we have always pitched our prices as fairly as possible.

Our largest customers include Air Liquide Europe, Ball Packaging, Aramco, InBev , CanPack, Conoco Philips, Sedamyl Italy and UK, who are loyal to the brand over many years. We are driving the cost of oil free downwards and we will continue to do so to the benefit of our customers.