Precoat

Addition of Inert Filter Aids. FUtet aids ate rigid, porous, and highly permeable powders added to feed suspensions to extend the appheabUity of surface filtration. Very dilute or very fine and slimy suspensions ate too difficult to filter by cake filtration due to fast pressure build-up and medium blinding addition of filter aids can alleviate such problems. Filter aids can be used in either or both of two modes of operation, ie, to form a precoat which then acts as a filter medium on a coarse support material called a septum, or to be mixed with the feed suspension as body feed to increase the permeabihty of the resulting cake. 

In the precoat mode, filter aids allow filtration of very fine or compressible soHds from suspensions of 5% or lower soHds concentration on a rotary dmm precoat filter. This modification of the rotary dmm vacuum filter uses an advancing knife continuously to skim off the separated soHds and the... 

In the precoat and body feed mode, filter aids allow appHcation of surface filtration to clarification of Hquids, ie, filtration of very dilute suspensions of less than 0.1% by volume, such as those normally treated by deep bed filters or centrifugal clarifiers. Filter aids are used in this mode with pressure filters. A precoat is first formed by passing a suspension of the filter aid through the filter. This is followed by filtration of the feed Hquid, which may have the filter aid mixed with it as body feed in order to improve the permeabiUty of the resulting cake. The proportion of the filter aid to be added as body feed is of the same order as the amount of contaminant soHds in the feed Hquid this limits the appHcation of such systems to low concentrations. Recovery and regeneration of filter aids from the cakes normally is not practiced except in a few very large installations where it might become economical. 

In units designed to use a precoat filter aid, the dmm can be evacuated over the fiiU 360° and fitted with an advancing knife system that continuously shaves off the deposited soHds together with a thin layer of the precoat. The precoat has to be renewed periodically. 

A variation to the top-feed dmm filter is the dual dmm filter which uses two dmms of the same size in contact with each other and rotating in opposite directions. The feed enters into the V-shaped space formed on top of the two dmms and the cake that starts forming initially contains coarser particles due to the settling which takes place in the feed zone. This is beneficial to the clarity of the filtrate because the coarser particles act as a precoat. Erom the point of view, however, of the final moisture content of the cake the stratification of the soHds in the cake may lead to somewhat wetter cakes. Utilization of the area of the dmms is poor since there are dead spaces under the two dmms. The primary appHcation of the dual dmm filters is in dewatering coarse mineral or coal suspensions at feed concentrations greater than 200 kg/m. ... 

Results of test work with this filter, producing cakes of 1 mm thickness using a 3 mm clearance, have been pubUshed (33,34). The cake formed on the medium was generally stable, giving high filtration rates over long periods of time, and the precoat type cake did not blind with time. There was no evidence of any size selectivity of the process the only exception was conventional filter aids which were preferentially picked up by the rotating fluid. This... 

Use of ultrafiltration (UF) membranes is becoming increasingly popular for clarification of apple juice. AH particulate matter and cloud is removed, but enzymes pass through the membrane as part of the clarified juice. Thus pasteurization before UF treatment to inactivate enzymes prevents haze formation from enzymatic activity. Retention of flavor volatiles is lower than that using a rack-and-frame press, but higher than that using rotary vacuum precoat-filtration (21). 

The shell-molding process, introduced in the United States in 1948, is an important market for phenoHc resins. In the original process, dry sand and powdered resin (6—8%) are blended. However, because of the high binder content and the difficulty in obtaining a uniform mix, precoating methods were developed. 

Filtration. Any type of clarification is foUowed by filtration through leaf-type vertical or horizontal pressure filters. Carbonatated Hquors, containing calcium carbonate, may require addition of diatomaceous earth as a filter precoat. Phosphatated Hquors are generally filtered with the addition of diatomaceous earth as precoat and body feed. 

Dynamic membranes are concentration—polarization layers formed in situ from the ultrafiltration of coUoidal material analogous to a precoat in conventional filter operations. Hydrous zirconia has been thoroughly investigated other materials include bentonite, poly(acryhc acid), and films deposited from the materials to be separated (18). 

Pretreatment of membranes with dynamically formed polarization layers and enzyme precoats have been effective (12,13,39). Pretreatment with synthetic permeates prevents startup instabiUty with some feed dispersions. 

Scotts technology (17) uses fluid-bed (Wurster column) technology to apply polymeric coatings to a number of fertilizer substrates including urea, potassium nitrate, potassium sulfate, and monoammonium phosphate (MAP). The coating material is appHed as a water-borne latex onto the fluidized substrate. As the substrate is fluidized with warm air (40—50°C), water is driven off and the latex coalesces into a continuous film around the fertilizer particle. The particular latex compositions used have selected glass-transition and blocking temperatures, which enable quick removal of the water before the soluble fertilizer core dissolves. This obviates the need to use precoats prior to the latex appHcation. 

Typically, a filter cake or precoat is built up on the filter septa to prevent blinding, short filter cycle times, and cosdy cleaning of the septa. Then diatomite is added as body feed to the Hquid to be filtered so that the permeabiHty of the filter cake may be maintained. Filler aid permeabiHty of diatomite ranges from 0.06 to 30 lnF. At the end of the filter cycle the filtrate is clear and the soHds are retained in the soHd or semisoHd diatomite filter cake. The type and amount of diatomite for precoat and body feed are normally deterrnined by pilot studies (18,19). 

In cake or surface filtration, there are two primary areas of consideration continuous filtration, in which the resistance of the filter cake (deposited process solids) is veiy large with respec t to that of the filter media and filtrate drainage, and batch pressure filtration, in which the resistance of the filter cake is not veiy Targe with respect to that of the filter media and filtrate drainage. Batch pressure filters are generally fitted with heavy, tight filter cloths plus a layer of precoat and these represent a significant resistance that must be taken into account. Continuous filters, except for precoats, use relatively open cloths that offer little resistance compared to that of the filter cake. 

It is both convenient and reasonable in continuous filtration, except for precoat filters, to assume that the resistance of the filter cloth plus filtrate drainage is neghgible compared to the resistance of the filter cake and to assume that both pressure drop and specific cake resistance remain constant throughout the filter cycle. Equation (18-51), integrated under these conditions, may then be manipulated to give the following relationships ... 

Cloth Blinding Continuous filters, except for precoats, generally use some type of medium to effect the separation of the solid and filtrate phases. Since the medium is in contact with the process solids, there is always the danger, and almost invariably the ac tual occurrence, of medium blinding. The term blinding refers to blockage of the fabric itself, either by the wedging of process solids or by solids precipitated in and around the yarn. 

Precoat Procedure Precoat filtration tests are run in exactly the same manner as bottom-feed tests except that the leaf must first be precoated with a bed of diatomaceous earth, perhte, or other shave-able inert sohds. Some trial and error is involved in selecting a grade of precoat material which will retain the filtered solids to be removed on the surface of the bed without any significant penetration. During this selection process, relatively thin precoat beds of I to 2 cm are satisfactory. After a grade has been selected, bench-scale tests should be... 

Where the resistance of the precoat bed is significant in comparison to the resistance of the deposited solids, the thickness of the precoat bed effec tively controls the filtration rate. In some instances, the resistance of the deposited solids is veiy large with respec t to even a thick precoat bed. In this case, variations in thickness through the life of the precoat bed have relatively little effec t on filtration rate. This type of information readily becomes apparent when the filtration rate data are correlated. 

The depth of cut involved in precoat filtration is a veiy important economic factor. There is some disagreement as to the method required to accurately predic t the minimum permissible depth of cut. Some investigators maintain that the depth of cut can be evaluated only in a quah-tative manner during bench-scale tests by judging whether the process solids remain on the surface of the precoat beck This being so, they indicate that it is necessaiy to run a continuous pilot-plant test to determine the minimum permissible depth of cut. The use of a continuous pilot-plant filter is a veiy desirable approach and will provide accurate information under a variety of operating conditions. 

However, it is not always possible to run a pilot-plant test in order to determine the depth of cut. A well-accepted alternative approach makes use of the more sophisticated test leaf illustrated in Fig. 18-97. This test leaf is designed so that the cake and precoat are extruded axially out the open end of the leaf. The top of the retaining wall on this end of the leaf is a machined surface which serves as a support for a... 

Data from precoat tests, however, generally produce filtrate cui-ves with much steeper slopes. The precoat bed has a greater resistance than most filter fabrics, and the particles which are separated on a continuous precoat usually form a cake which has a relatively low resistance when compared to that of the precoat bed. Once the thickness of the deposited solids becomes significant, their resistance increases. Thus, at very short form times, the slope of the filtrate cui ve... 

There are some solids, however, which form a less permeable cake, even in veiy thin layers. With these sohds, the resistance of the deposited cake will be veiy high when compared to that of the precoat bed, and the slope of the filtrate cui ve will be -t-0.5 for all v ues of form time. 

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