FILTRATION

Mccabe and Smith: CHAPTER. 9

 Filtration:
 Filtration is the process for separation of solid particles from a fluid by passing the
fluid through filtering medium or septum, on which the solid particles are being
deposited.
 EXPLANATION:
 Fluid to be filtered, may be gas or fluid,
 The valuable stream from the filter may be fluid or separated solid particles or both
 In few cases both streams (separated solid stream and fluid stream) are non-valuable, but to
fulfill the environmental regulations the clarifications are necessary before disposing those
streams (industrial air pollution, reduction in smoke concentration).
 Often the feed to any filtration process may be pretreated to increase the filtration rate,
pretreatment may include, heating, recrystallization, or adding filter aid (cellulose or
diatomaceous earth).

Driving force for Filtration:
Driving force for fluid to flow across the filter medium (ultimate cause of filtration process) is the
Pressure Difference.
 Therefore to maintain the pressure difference as for driving force,
 Either upstream pressure is increased (above atmospheric pressure, with no change in downstream
pressure),
 Downstream vacuum is applied (with no change in upstream pressure)
 Both upstream pressure is increased with vacuum generation at downstream,
 Upstream pressure can be increased by adding a blower or pump, gravity acting on the column of
liquid (head of fluid), by centrifugal force.
 In certain cases, shaking or vibrating the system may positively stimulate the filtration process.
Continuous VS Periodic Filtration (Operation Modes)
 Types of Filters:
Cake filters:
 Types of Filters:
Clarifying Filters:
 Types of Filters:
Cross-flow Filters:

Filtration Filtration

Time Time
Dead End Filtration Cross-Flow Filtration
 CAKE
FILTERS
 Discontinuous Pressure Filters:
Filter Press:
 It contains a set of plates, desired to provide a
series of chambers or compartments in which solids
may collect.
 Slurry is admitted to each compartment under
pressure (from pump or pressurized tank usually at
3 to 9 atm. pressure), liquor passes through the
canvas and out to a discharge pipe, leaving the wet
cake of solid behind.
 Filtration continued until liquor is no longer flows
out the discharge or the filtration pressure suddenly
rises.
 These occurs when the frames are full of solids and
no more slurry can enter, the press is said to be
jammed.
 The press is then opened, and the cake of solids is
removed from filter medium and dropped to a
conveyor or a storage bin.
 Discontinuous Pressure Filters:
Shell and Leaf Filters:
 High pressure filtration than in plate and frame press.
 More labor economic and better washing of cake.
 During operation, the leaves are inside the closed tank.
 Feed enters through the side of the tank; filtrate passes
through the leaves into the discharge manifold.
 Continuous Vacuum Filters:
Rotary Drum Vacuum Filters:
 Liquor is sucked in through a moving septum to deposit a cake
of solids.
 Cake is moved out of filtering zone, washed, sucked, dried and
dislodged from the septum, and now the septum is again ready
to pick another load of slurry in a continuous manner.
 A horizontal drum with slotted face turns at 0.1 to 2 r/min, in
an agitated slurry trough.
 A filter medium such as canvas, covers the face of the drum,
that is partly submerged into the liquid.
 Under the slotted cylindrical face of a main drum is a second,
smaller drum with a solid surface.
 Between these two drums are radial partitions dividing annular
space into separate compartments, each connected by an
internal pipe in the rotating plate of rotary valve.
 Vacuum and air are alternately applied to each compartment.
 Continuous Vacuum Filters:
Rotary Drum Vacuum Filters:
 A layer of solid builds up as the liquid is drawn through the cloth
into the compartment, through the internal pipe, through the
valve and into the collecting tank.
 Solid cake is dried onto the surface (after the liquid on the surface
is thoroughly sucked through the solid surface), vacuum is cut off
and cake is removed by scraping it off by a horizontal knife,
known as Doctor’s Blade.
 In some designs of vacuum pump, there are no compartments and
vacuum is applied throughout the inter surface of filter medium.
 Vacuum systems is applicable when not much pressure difference
is required to be maintained, in case of high pressure separation
systems Rotary-Drum Pressure Filters are being used.
 High vapor pressure systems must also be taken into account
before choosing between Vacuum and Pressure systems.
 Preccoating is used in some cases to enhance the separation of
fine or gelatinous solids that ordinary filter cloth can’t separate.
 Continuous Vacuum Filters:
Horizontal Belt Filters:
 When feed contains coarse fast-settling particles
of solid, a rotary drum filter works poorly since
the coarse particles can not be suspended well in
slurry trough, and the cake that forms often do
not adhere to the surface of filter drum.
 It resembles to belt conveyor, in a form of endless
belt, with drainage belt carrying filter cloth.
 It is also provided with a vacuum system at the
bottom for the drainage of filtrate.
CENTRIFUGAL
FILTERS
 Basics of Centrifugal Filters:
 Slurry is fed to the rotating basket having perforated wall
covered with a filter medium such as canvas or metal cloth.
 Pressure resulting from centrifugal action forces the liquor
through the filter medium, leaving the solids behind.
 Centrifugal action may also results in residual liquid to drain
off the particles, leaving the solids much drier than those of
the filter press and vacuum filters, saving cost for drying of
solids (where dry solids are the demand of the product).

Continuous Filtering Centrifuges:

 Rotating basket with a slotted wall is fed through a revolving feed funnel (purpose of funnel is to
accelerate the feed gently and smoothly).
 Feed enters towards large end of the funnel, gaining speed and enters the basket whose walls are being
covered with a woven metal cloth.
 A layer of 25-75 mm thickness is formed, which is pushed further towards the lip of the basket by a
reciprocating plunger, from where it fly outwards into a large casing and drops at collector chute.
 Both filtrate and separated solid, leave the casing through separate outlets.
Basics of Centrifugal Filters:
Filtration Basics
and Pressure
drop Equations
 Properties of Filter Media:
 The septum in any filter must meet the following requirements:
 It must retain the solids to be filtered, giving a reasonably clear filtrate.
 It must not plug or blind.
 It must be resistant chemically and strong enough physically to withstand the
process conditions.
 It must allow the cake formed to discharge cleanly and completely.
 It must not be prohibitively expansive.
 In industrial filtration the common medium is Canvas Cloth, either duck or
twill weave.
 Corrosive liquids require the use of other filter media, such as woolen
cloth, metal cloth of monel or stainless steel, glass cloth, or paper.
 Synthetic fibers such as nylon, polypropylene and various polyesters are
also highly resistant chemically.
 Principles of Cake Filtration:
 Filtration differs from fluidizations in a sense that in
fluidization, the resistance remains constant with time, while in
case of filtration the resistances increase with time as the filter
medium becomes clogged or a filter cake builds up.
 The chief quantities of interest are:
 Constant Flowrate filtration (the pressure drop is progressively increased while
flowrate remains constant)
 Constant Pressure filtration (the pressure drop is held constant and flowrate is
allowed to fall with time)
 In case of cake filtration, the liquid passes through two
resistances in series (resistance due to cake and resistance due
to filter medium)
Principles of Cake Filtration:
 Filter medium resistance,
which is only the resistance in
clarifying filters, is normally
important only during early
stages of cake filtration.
 Cake filtration is zero at the
start and increases as the
filtration time proceeds.
 Principles of Cake Filtration:
Overall Pressure Drop:
 The pressure drop at any time is the pressure drop across filter
medium and cake.
 If Pa is the inlet pressure and Pb is the outlet pressure, P’ is the
pressure at the boundary between cake and filter medium, then
 Principles of Cake Filtration:
Pressure Drop through filter cake:
 Following the figure, 30.14, which is given for a certain cake
thickness ‘Lc’ at a certain time ‘t’, if the time is increased, cake
thickness will also increase.
 Filter area perpendicular to the direction of flow is ‘A’.
 Considering the thickness dL to be considered at a distance ‘L’ from
filter medium.
 Let the pressure at that point is ‘P’, so we get a thin layer of
particles at a distance L from filter medium where pressure ‘P’ is
being maintained when filtrate passes through the filter cake.
 In filter medium the velocity is sufficiently low to consider a
laminar flow.
Principles of Cake Filtration:
 Principles of Cake Filtration:
Pressure Drop through filter cake:
 Following equation can be used for determination of Pressure drop
across the length dL,
 Principles of Cake Filtration:
Pressure Drop through filter cake:
 Principles of Cake Filtration:
Pressure Drop through filter cake:
 In filtration under low pressure
drop of slurries containing rigid
uniform particles all factors of
equation 30.13 except ‘m’ and
independent of ‘L’.
 The equation is integrable over
entire thickness of the cake, if
mc is total mass of solid
deposited then we will get
equation, 30,14.
 Equation, 30.16(b) shows that
resistance to filtration s solely
affected by physical properties.
 Principles of Cake Filtration:
Incompressible vs Compressible Cake structures:
 Most cakes encountered in industries are not made up of individual rigid particles, in fact
they are mixture of agglomerates, or flocs, consisting up of loose assemblies of small
particles.
 Resistance being encountered in cakes depends upon structure of flocs or agglomerates
rather than individual particles.
 Resistance of cake in real industrial problems depends upon the method of preparation,
their age and temperature variations.
 The factors that are constant in case of incompressible cakes (porosity, surface to volume
ratio), varies from layer to layer in case of compressible solids.
 Cake resistance in case of compressible solids varies with the distance from the septum,
since the cake nearest to the septum is being subjected to greatest compressive force
and has lowest void fraction, this makes the pressure gradient highly non-linear.
 Principles of Cake Filtration:
Resistance of Filter Medium:
 Filter cake resistance Rm can be defined by analogy with the cake resistance .
 The equation is given by,


 Filter medium resistance, Rm,

 Vary with pressure drop, since the higher liquid velocities caused by large pressure drop may force additional
particles of solid into the filter medium.
 It varies with age and cleanliness of filter medium; but since it is important during early stages of filtration,
it is assumed constant during any given filtration.
 It is treated as an empirical constant, it also includes any resistance to flow that may exist in the pipes
leading to and from the filter.