EKC 316

Filtration
 Definition & Principles
• Filtration is the removal of solid particles from a fluid by
passing the fluid through a filtering medium, or septum, on
which the solids are deposited.
• The fluid maybe a liquid or gas; the valuable component
may be the filtrate or the filtered solid or both. Sometimes it
is neither, as when waste solids must be separated from
waste liquid, prior to disposal.
• Fluid flows through a filter medium by virtue of a pressure
differential across the medium. Therefore, filters can be
classified as those that operate with a pressure above
atmospheric on the upstream side of the filter medium and
atmospheric pressure on the downstream side. Or those
that operate with atmospheric pressure on the upstream
side and a vacuum on the downstream side.
 Definition & Principles
• Most industrial filters are pressure, filters vacuum filters or
centrifugal separators. They are also either continuous or
discontinuous, depending on whether the discharge of filtered
solids is steady or intermittent.
• During much of the operating cycle of a discontinuous filter,
the flow of fluid through the device is continuous but it must
be interrupted periodically to permit discharging of
accumulated solids. In a continuous filter the discharge of
both solids and fluid is uninterrupted as long as the
equipment is in operation.
• Filters are divided into three main groups cake filters,
clarifying filters and crossflow filters. Cake filters separate
relatively large amounts of solid as a cake of crystals or
sludge. Often they include provisions for washing the cake
and for removing some of the liquid from the solids before
discharge.
 Definition & Principles
• Clarifying filters remove
small amounts of solids to
produce a clean gas or
sparkling clear liquid such
as beverages. The solid
particles are trapped
inside the filter medium or
on its external surfaces.

• In a crossflow filter, the feed suspension flows under

pressure at a fairly high velocity across the filter medium. A
thin layer of solids may form on the surface of the medium
but the high liquid velocity keeps the layer from building up.
 Cake Filters
• At the start of filtration in a cake filter, some solid particles
enter the pores of the medium and are immobilized, but
soon others begin to collect on the septum surface.
• After this brief initial period the cake of solids does the
filtration and not the septum, a visible cake of appreciable
thickness builds up on the surface and must be periodically
removed.
• Except as noted under bag filters for gas cleaning, cake
filters are used almost entirely for liquid solid separations.
• As with other filters they may operate with above
atmospheric pressure upstream from the filter medium or
with vacuum applied downstream. Either type can be
continuous or discontinuous but because of the difficulty of
discharging the solids against a positive pressure, most
pressure filters are discontinuous.
 Dis-
continuous
Filters:
Filter Press
 Dis-
continuous
Filters:
Filter Press

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eemVP8SswSg
Continuous Filters: Rotary Vacuum Filter
Continuous Filters: Rotary Vacuum Filter

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkzhPiCZMQ4
Filtration Equation for Constant-Pressure Filtration

where:
is viscosity, Pa.s or kg/m.s  is specific cake resistance, m/kg
V (m3) is volume of filtrate collected at time, t (s)
cs is slurry concentration, kg/m3 A is filter area, m2
p is pressure drop N/m2 Rm is resistance of filter medium, m-1
Filtration Equation for Constant-Pressure
Filtration
Example 1
Example 2