Filtration process

Deep Bed Filters. Deep bed filtration is fundamentally different from cake filtration both in principle and appHcation. The filter medium (Fig. 4) is a deep bed with pore size much greater than the particles it is meant to remove. No cake should form on the face of the medium. Particles penetrate into the medium where they separate due to gravity settling, diffusion, and inertial forces attachment to the medium is due to molecular and electrostatic forces. Sand is the most common medium and multimedia filters also use garnet and anthracite. The filtration process is cycHc, ie, when the bed is full of sohds and the pressure drop across the bed is excessive, the flow is intermpted and solids are backwashed from the bed, sometimes aided by air scouring or wash jets. 

Several processes are used to erihance the filtration process itself. They may also be related processes in their own right. 

Mechanical Squeezing of Cakes. Mechanical squeesing of the cake in the so-called variable chamber filters has been used relatively recendy to lower moisture content of the final cake. This is appHcable only to cakes that are compressible. Many filters are available in which some form of mechanical expression of the cake is used either to foUow a conventional filtration process or to replace it. 

Conventional filtration theory has been challenged a two-phase theory has been appHed to filtration and used to explain the deviations from paraboHc behavior in the initial stages of the filtration process (10). This new theory incorporates the medium as an integral part of the process and shows that the interaction of the cake particles with the medium controls filterabiHty. It defines a cake-septum permeabiHty which then appears in the slope of the conventional plots instead of the cake resistance. This theory, which merely represents a new way of interpreting test data rather than a new method of siting or scaling filters, is not yet accepted by the engineering community. 

Since 1980, a number of new filters have appeared on the market, utilising some form of mechanical compression of the filter cake, either after a conventional pressure filtration process or as a substitute for it. In most designs the compression is achieved by inflating a diaphragm which presses the slurry or the freshly formed filter cake toward the medium, thus squee2ing an additional amount of Hquid out of the cake. 

The KDF filter was first tested in prototype on a coal mine in northern Germany. It was installed in parallel with existing vacuum filters and it produced filter cakes consistendy lower in moisture content by 5 to 7% than the vacuum filters. Two production models have been installed and operated on a coal mine in Belgium. The filter is controlled by a specially developed computer system this consists of two computers, one monitoring the function of the filter and all of the detection devices installed, and the other controlling the filtration process. The system allows optimization of the performance, automatic start-up or shut-down, and can be integrated into the control system of the whole coal washing plant. 

Filtration. The filtration process depends on the physical retardation of microorganisms from a fluid by a filter membrane or similarly effective medium. The effectiveness of this process is also influenced by the bioburden (6). HoUow-fiber membranes (qv) are most often employed. The resultant... 

Materials may be absorbed by a variety of mechanisms. Depending on the nature of the material and the site of absorption, there may be passive diffusion, filtration processes, faciHtated diffusion, active transport and the formation of microvesicles for the cell membrane (pinocytosis) (61). EoUowing absorption, materials are transported in the circulation either free or bound to constituents such as plasma proteins or blood cells. The degree of binding of the absorbed material may influence the availabiHty of the material to tissue, or limit its elimination from the body (excretion). After passing from plasma to tissues, materials may have a variety of effects and fates, including no effect on the tissue, production of injury, biochemical conversion (metaboli2ed or biotransformed), or excretion (eg, from liver and kidney). 

The individual membrane filtration processes are defined chiefly by pore size although there is some overlap. The smallest membrane pore size is used in reverse osmosis (0.0005—0.002 microns), followed by nanofiltration (0.001—0.01 microns), ultrafHtration (0.002—0.1 microns), and microfiltration (0.1—1.0 microns). Electro dialysis uses electric current to transport ionic species across a membrane. Micro- and ultrafHtration rely on pore size for material separation, reverse osmosis on pore size and diffusion, and electro dialysis on diffusion. Separation efficiency does not reach 100% for any of these membrane processes. For example, when used to desalinate—soften water for industrial processes, the concentrated salt stream (reject) from reverse osmosis can be 20% of the total flow. These concentrated, yet stiH dilute streams, may require additional treatment or special disposal methods. 

To use Eq. (18--50) one must know the pattern of the filtration process, i.e., the variation of the flow rate and pressure with time. Generally the pumping mechanism determines the filtration flow characteristics and serves as a basis for the following three categories [Tiller and Crump, Chem. Eng. Prog., 73(10), 65 (1977)] ... 

Belt Presses Belt presses were fiiUy described in the section on filtration. The description here is intended to cover only the parts and designs that apply expression pressure by a mechanism in adchtion to the normal compression obtained from tensioning the belts and pulling them over rollers of smaller and smaller diameters. The tension on the belt produces a squeezing pressure on the filter cake proportional to the diameter of the rollers. Normally, that static pressure is calculated as P = 2T/D, where P is the pressure (psi), T is the tension on the belts (Ib/hnear in), and D is the roller diameter. This calculation results in values about one-half as great as the measured values because it ignores pressure created by drive torque and some other forces [Laros, Advances in Filtration and Separation Technology, 7 (System Approach to Separation and Filtration Process Equipment), pp. 505-510 (1993)]. 

The next stage may best be described as a primitive hot-filtration process. Two members of the village sit across the front of a simple fire resembling a Dutch oven, holding between them a bag about 30 feet long and about two inches in diameter. The lac inside the bag melts and, through one of the operators twisting the end of the bag, the lac is squeezed out. The lac is then removed from the outside of the bag and collected into a molten lump which is then stretched out... 

The filtration process may therefore be expressed by a very simple relationship ... 

The objective of this chapter is to provide an overview of filtration terminology and basic engineering principles, as well as calculation methods that describe the filtration process in a generalized way. The basis equations describing the generalized process of filtration have been around for nearly 100 years, and with few refinements, continue to be applied to modem design practices. 

Explain the term connectivity and its relevance to the filtration process. 

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