Pressure drop across filters

Sepa.ra.tlon, Sodium carbonate (soda ash) is recovered from a brine by first contacting the brine with carbon dioxide to form sodium bicarbonate. Sodium bicarbonate has a lower solubiUty than sodium carbonate, and it can be readily crystallized. The primary function of crystallization in this process is separation a high percentage of sodium bicarbonate is soHdified in a form that makes subsequent separation of the crystals from the mother hquor economical. With the available pressure drop across filters that separate Hquid and soHd, the capacity of the process is determined by the rate at which hquor flows through the filter cake. That rate is set by the crystal size distribution produced in the crystallizer. 

The question of resistances on the low pressure side of the membrane has also been addressed. Pressure drops across filter paper and porous metal frit membrane supports used in these experiments were measured and found to be not large enough to account for the thickness effects [23]. Again, the greatest effect of this type of resistance is at high fluxes, and the largest thickness effect is at low flux conditions. 

Regenerate at 20-psig pressure drop across filter... 

Bag filters. Bag filters, as discussed in Chap. 3 and illustrated in Fig. 3.66, are probably the most common method of separating particulate materials from gases. A cloth or felt filter material is used that is impervious to the particles. Bag filters are suitable for use in very high dust load conditions. They have an extremely high efficiency, but they suflFer from the disadvantage that the pressure drop across them may be high. ... 

The most common technique for estimating thermal stability is called the Jet Fuel Thermal Oxidation Test (JFTOT). It shows the tendency of the fuel to form deposits on a metallic surface brought to high temperature. The sample passes under a pressure of 34.5 bar through a heated aluminum tube (260°C for Jet Al). After two and one-half hours, the pressure drop across a 17-micron filter placed at the outlet of the heater is measured (ASTM D 3241). 

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. 

The main advantage of HGMS is high efficiency of separation even at relatively high dow rates and minimum pressure drops across the filter. The capital cost is very high, and only large installations are attractive economically because capacity increases with the square of the diameter of the canister while the weight of copper conductor increases linearly with diameter. 

The most important feature of the pressure filters which use hydrauHc pressure to drive the process is that they can generate a pressure drop across the medium of more than 1 x 10 Pa which is the theoretical limit of vacuum filters. While the use of a high pressure drop is often advantageous, lea ding to higher outputs, drier cakes, or greater clarity of the overflow, this is not necessarily the case. Eor compressible cakes, an increase in pressure drop leads to a decrease in permeabiUty of the cake and hence to a lower filtration rate relative to a given pressure drop. 

Vacuum pump capacity is conventionally based on the total cycle and expressed as mVh-m" (cfi7i/ft ) of filter area measured at pump inlet conditions. Thus, the gas volumes per unit area passing during each dry period in the cycle are totaled and divided by the cycle time to arrive at the design air rate. Since air rate measurements in the test program are based on pressure drop across the cake and filter medium only, allowance must be made For additional expansion due to pressure drop within the filter and auxiliary piping system in arriving at vacuum pump inlet conditions. 

For incompressible cake, the pressure distribution and the rate depend on the resistance of the filter medium and the permeability of the cake. Figure L8-150 shows several possible pressure profiles in the cake with increasing filtration rates through the cake. It is assumed that r /i i = 0.8 and /p//i = 0.6. The pressure at / = ri, corresponds to pressure drop across the filter medium Ap, with the ambient pressure taken to be zero. The filtration rate as well as the pressure distribution depend on the medium resistance and that of the cake. High medium resistance or blinding of the medium results in greater penalty on filtration rate. 

The pressure drop through the filter is a function of two separate effects. The clean filter has some initial pressure drop. This is a function of filter material, depth of the filter, the superficial gas velocity, which is the gas velocity perpendicular to the filter face, and the viscosity of the gas. Added to the clean filter resistance is the resistance that occurs when the adhering particles form a cake on the filter surface. This cake increases in thickness as approximately a linear function of time, and the pressure difference necessary to cause the same gas flow also becomes a linear function with time. Usually, the pressure available at the filter is limited so that as the cake builds up the flow decreases. Filter cleaning can be based, therefore, on (1) increased pressure drop across the filter, (2) decreased volume of gas flow, or (3) time elapsed since the last cleaning. 

The filter ratio for baghouses, also called the gas to cloth ratio, varies from 0.6 to 1.5 m of gas per minute per square meter of fabric. The pressure drop across the fabric is a function of the filter ratio it ranges from about... 

Filters for mists and droplets have more open area than those used for dry parhcles. If a filter is made of many fine, closely spaced fibers, it will become wet due to the collected liquid. Such wethng will lead to mathng of the fibers, retenhon of more liquid, and eventual blocking of the fiter. Therefore, instead of fine, closely spaced fibers, the usual wet filtrahon system is composed of either knitted wire or wire mesh packed into a pad. A looser filtrahon medium results in a filter with a lower pressure drop than that of the filters used for dry parhculates. The reported pressure drop across wire mesh mist eliminators is 1-2 cm of water at face velocihes of 5 m sec T The essenhal collechon mechanisms employed for filtrahon of droplets and mists are inertial impachon and, to a lesser extent, direct intercephon. 

Pressure drop across the inlet filter. This can be remedied by cleaning or replacing the filter. 

API mandates that the pressure drop across a clean filter element be no more than 15% of the allowable pressure drop when dirty. An upper limit of 5 psi drop is set for clean filters. This is a reasonable criterion. If a little arithmetic is performed, the head rise for a centrifugal pump may be calculated. The specifications on both of these items must be coordinated and made compatible. 

Practical application of fabric filters requires the use of a large fabric area in order to avoid an unacceptable pressure drop across the fabric. Baghouse size for a... 

There are conflicting procedures for predicting pressure drop across fibrous filters. The three chief methods of predicting pressure drop are based on the hydraulic... 

Constants C and K can be determined from several measurements of filtrate volumes taken at different time intervals. There are some doubts as to the actual constancy of C and K during constant pressure filtration. Constants C and K depend on r (specific volumetric cake resistance), which, in turn, depends on the pressure drop across the cake. This AP causes some changes in the cake, especially during the initial stages of filtration. When the cake is very thin, the main portion of the total pressure drop is exerted on the filter medium. As the cake becomes thicker, the pressure drop through the cake increases rapidly but then levels off to a constant value. Isobaric filtration shows insignificant deviation from the expressions developed. For approximate calculations, it is possible to neglect the resistance of the filter plate, provided the cake is not too thin. Then the filter plate resistance, Rf, is equal to zero, C = 0, and r = 0. Hence, a simplified equation is = Kr. 

Air cleaning (dust collection) can be cost effective for LVHV systems handling valuable dusts. Care must be taken when handling potentially toxic dusts from air cleaners. Regular, routine reconditioning of fabric filters (e.g., by automatic shaking or pneumatic pulsing) is impottant. This can be accomplished on a set maintenance schedule or as a function of pressure drop across the fabric filter. It is not recommended to recirculate airflow back to the workplace because of the low air volume and potential hazards in the event of filter failures. 

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. 

As discussed in the preceding section, filter bags must be periodically cleaned to prevent excessive build-up of dust and to maintain an acceptable pressure drop across the filters. Two of the three designs discussed, reverse-flow and reverse-pulse, depend on an adequate supply of clean air or gas to provide this periodic cleaning. Two factors are critical in these systems the clean-gas supply and the proper cleaning frequency. 

This can be a real problem for baghouses that rely on automatic timers to control cleaning frequency. The use of a timing function to control cleaning frequency is not recommended unless the dust load is known to be consistent. A better approach is to use differential-pressure gages to physically measure the pressure drop across the filter media to trigger the cleaning process based on preset limits. 

The filtration, or superficial face, velocities used in fabric filters are generally in the range of 1 to 10 feet per minute, depending on the type of fabric, fabric supports, and cleaning methods used. In this range, pressure drops conform to Darcy s law for streamline flow in porous media, which states that the pressure drop is directly proportional to the flow rate. The pressure drop across the... 

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