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EZ-Fit™ Manifold. Designing for Sustainability.

EZ-Fit™ Manifold
Designing for Sustainability

Molsheim, 8:30 am, a springtime Monday morning.

Molsheim, 8:30 am,
a springtime Monday morning:

FabienThibault, Merck Product designer, leads a discussion with the BioMonitorng R&D team and Frederic Amstoutz, Product Manager Bioburden at Merck, to brainstorm the design of a new filtration system, the EZ-Fit Manifold.

Based on Merck’s Design for Sustainability program, they seek to improve customer’s ease of use, while reducing the product’s environmental footprint. Future-forward: The development of the EZ-Fit™ Manifold – innovative thinking from the beginning of the product design process to help our customers improve their environmental performance.

Read more about responsibility at Merck

In approaching a new manifold design, the team considered feedback from membrane filtration users worldwide and across industries that former manifolds were too heavy, difficult to take apart and difficult to clean. Combining this with their knowledge that our shipping resulted in increased emissions and customer processes required a lot of energy during autoclaving, it was clear – the manifold re-design was a perfect target for our Design for Sustainability program.

Design for sustainability means choosing environmentally friendly materials, reducing material quantity and waste, and optimizing packaging – all without compromising on quality or performance.

Following many design and strategy discussions, the team has created what is known today as the EZ-Fit Manifold.


The EZ-Fit Manifold Features Four Major Sustainable Attributes:

  1. Produced with less material
    • Fewer CO2 emissions associated with product shipment
  2. Filtration heads can be easily removed for the autoclaving process
    • Eliminating the need to autoclave the entire manifold every time, thus saving energy
  3. Ergonomically optimized – low weight and height
    • Largest model weighs 3.2 kilograms and is 52 percent lighter than its predecessor.
    • Low height design increases comfort, especially when used in laminar flow hoods
  4. Designed for recycling
    • After its 10-year validated lifetime, 99.9% by weight of the product materials can be recycled.
    • Packaged in 100 percent recyclable cardboard.


Fabien & Frederic reflect on their sustainable product innovation:

"Customers increasingly seek more sustainable products. Therefore, as part of our Design for Sustainability program, Merck has developed a number of tools to drive sustainability across the product development process. The development of the EZ-Fit Manifold is a great example of how we apply innovative thinking from the beginning of the product design process; to not only bring our customers solutions that make a difference, but to reduce our impact on human health and the environment as well."


Read more about the EZ-Fit Manifold and the EZ-Family.