Metallic filter medium

Metallic filter media are widely used throughout the chemical and process industries in the form of perforated or slotted plates of steel, bronze or other materials. These designs provide for easy removal of coarse particles and for suj rting loose rigid media. 

Metallic filter media may be used either for cake filtration or depth filtration, i.e., pore clogging. Regeneration of media may be achieved by dissolving solid particles inside the pores or by back thrust of filtrate. 

There are three important types of metallic filter medium wire mesh, sintered powder, and random fiber. Wire mesh comes in a square weave or Dutch twill (woven in parallel diagonal lines). The different filter media do not perform equally with respect to their ability to hold contaminant, capture gels, etc. [11, 12]. A relative performance comparison is shown in Table 3.7. 

Panel filters may use either viscous or dry filter media. Viscous filters are so called because the filter medium is coated with a tacky liquid of high viscosity (e.g., mineral oil and adhesives) to retain the dust. The filter pad consists of an assembly of coarse fibers (now usually metal, glass, or plastic). Because the fibers are coarse and the media are highlv porous, resistance to air flow is low and high filtration velocities can be used. 

Rotary Drum Filters The rotaiy drum filter is the most widely used of the continuous filters. There are many design variations, including operation as either a pressure filter or a vacuum filter. The major difference between designs is in the technique for cake discharge, to be discussed later. All the alternatives are characterized by a horizontal-axis drum covered on the cylindrical portion by filter medium over a grid support structure to allow drainage to manifolds. Basic materials of construc tion may be metals or plastics. Sizes (in terms of filter areas) range from 0.37 to 186 m (4 to 2000 ft ). 

Disk Filters A disk filter is a vacuum filter consisting of a number of vertical disks attached at intervals on a continuously rotating horizontal hollow central shaft (Fig. 18-127). Rotation is by a gear drive. Each disk consists of 10 to 30 sectors of metal, plastic, or wood, ribbed on both sides to support a filter cloth and provide drainage via an outlet nipple into the central shaft. Each sector may be replaced individually. The filter medium is usually a cloth bag slipped over the sectors and sealed to the discharge nipple. For some heavy-duty applications on ores, stainless-steel screens may be used. 

The filter medium can be fibrous, such as cloth granular, such as sand a rigid solid, such as a screen or a mat, such as a felt pad. It can be in the shape of a tube, sheet, bed, fluidized bed, or any other desired form. The material can be natural or man-made fibers, granules, cloth, felt, paper, metal, ceramic, glass, or plastic. It is not surprising that filters are manufactured in an infinite variety of types, sizes, shapes, and materials. 

Precipitates or salts are used when corrosive liquor must be filtered, and where there is no available medium of sufficient fineness that is corrosion-resistant and will not contaminate the cake. In these cases, precipitates or salts are used on porous supports. In the filtration of caustic liquors, ordinary salt (sodium chloride) is used as the filter medium in the form of a precoat over metallic cloth. This procedure has the advantage that the salt medium will not be detrimental to either the cake or the filtrate if inadvertently mixed with it. 

Normally the filter strueture consists of a stack of plates attached to a hollow shaft which are mounted inside a pressure vessel with eaeh plate eovered with a suitable filter medium. The slurry is fed under pressure into the vessel and the eake, which is retained by the filter medium, forms on the top of eaeh plate whilst the filtrate passes through the hollow shaft further to the proeess. Filter sizes may vary but generally the maximum is 60 m area and designed for a 6 bar operating pressure. Each circular plate in the staek is eonstructed with radial ribs that are welded to the bottom and support a horizontal eoarse mesh screen whieh is eovered with a fmer woven metal screen or filter cloth to retain the cake. The bottom of the plate slopes towards the hollow eentral shaft whieh lets the filtrate flow freely through circumferential holes and further down the shaft to the filtrate outlet. The elearanee between the plates is maintained by speeial spacers... 

The filter floor and cloth, woven mesh screen or sintered metal plate medium... 

They must be readily accessible for cleaning, which should be carried out as frequently as necessary to ensure that pressure drop across the filter does not affect normal oil flow rates. The filtering medium should be of corrosion-resistant material such as Monel metal, phosphor-bronze or stainless steel. All first-stage filters should be provided with isolating valves. 

The choice of the filter medium is often the most important consideration to ensure efficient operation of a filter. Its function is generally to act as a support for the filter cake, while the initial layers of cake provide the actual filter. The filter medium should be selected primarily on the basis of its ability to retain solids without binding. It should be mechanically strong and corrosion resistant, and should offer as little resistance as possible to the flow of the filtrate. The media are made from widely different materials such as cotton, wool, linen, nylon, jute, silk, glass fiber, porous carbon, metals, rayon and other synthetics, and miscellaneous materials like porous rubber. Cotton fabrics are most commonly used because they are available in a wide variety of weaves, and are cheap. 

A wide variety of filters are available for the cell recovery. There are generally two major types of filters pressure and vacuum filters. The detailed descriptions of those filter units can be found in Chemical Engineers Handbook (Perry and Chilton, 1973). The two types of filters most used for cell recovery are the filter press and rotary drum filters. A filter press is often employed for the small-scale separation of bacteria and fungi from broths. For large-scale filtration, rotary drum filters are usually used. A common filter medium is the cloth filter made of canvas, wool, synthetic fabrics, metal, or glass fiber. 

Centrifugal force, rather than pressure differential, is used to throw the solid phase against the filter medium and force liquid through the filter medium and cake. The filter medium may be wire mesh, perforated metal or cloth and is not usually used in a precoat manner. Centrifugal filters can be either batch or continuous operation. 

These are housings of metal or plastic containing one or more replaceable and renewable cartridges which contain the active filter element, usually based on a polymeric filter medium or in some cases, sintered stainless steel. They are useful as polishing filters where the level of solids to be removed is relatively low, to prevent the filter from blocking up. 

Atomic absorption techniques can be used to analyse gases indirectly, as liquid samples. To prepare the liquid sample the metals are removed from the gas stream or atmospheric sample using a filter medium such as a milli-pore filter disc. This is then either dissolved or washed in nitric acid and the solution analysed by standard additions. These procedures are now extensively used by Health Safety Executive Inspectors to monitor (particularly) heavy metals in working environments. The reader is referred to Chapter 4C. 

Choosing the filter medium to be used in a pressure filter is a very important consideration. The medium should be selected primarily for its ability to retain the contaminant to be separated, and to have an acceptable life in the filter environment. Filter media are manufactured from cotton, synthetic polymers, glass, cellulose, metal, carbon, refractories, and other porous or perforated solids, and sand and other particulate solids. The filter s effectiveness may be enhanced by the use of filter aids. 

Microscreening is a method of filtration that uses fabric as the filtering medium. Microscreens (microstrainers) usually consist of a special metallic or plastic fabric mounted on the periphery of a revolving drum. The untreated water flows into the drum and radiates outward through the microfabric, leaving behind the suspended solids removed by the cloth. The solids retained on the inside of the rotating screen are carried upward to a row of backwash jets that flush them into a hopper, which is mounted on a hollow axle of the drum, for return to the treatment plant. 

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