Particle technology

CE510

chapter 7: FILTRATION

Musango Lungu, D Eng

School of Mines and Mineral Sciences
Chemical engineering department
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Introduction
What is filtration ?
This is the separation of solids from a suspension in a liquid by means of a porous medium
or screen which retains the solids and allows the liquid to pass.
• Industrial filtration ranges from simple straining to highly complex separations.
• Fluid may be liquid or gas; valuable stream from the filter may be the fluid , or the
solids or both. Sometimes its neither when the waste solid must be separated from the
waste liquid prior to disposal.
• Feed is often modified in some way by pretreatment to increase filtration rate. i.e.
heating, recrystallization or by adding a filter aid such as cellulose or diatomaceous
earth.
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•
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• The choice of filtration equipment depends largely upon economics, but the economic

advantages will vary depending upon the following:
• (a) fluid properties; viscosity; density and corrosive properties.
• (b) nature of solids; particle size and distribution; shape, flocculation tendencies and
deformability.
• (c) feed slurry concentration.
• (d) amount of material to be handled.
• (e) absolute and relative values of liquid and solid products.
• (f) completeness of separation required.
• (g) relative costs of labor, capital and power.
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• Filtration is essentially a mechanical operation and is less demanding in energy than

evaporation or drying where the high latent heat of the liquid, which is usually water,
has to be provided.
• In a typical filtration operation, the cake gradually
builds up on the medium and the resistance to flow
progressively increases.
• During the initial period of flow, particles are
deposited in the surface layers of the cloth to
form the true filtering medium.
• This initial deposit may be formed from a special
initial flow of pre-coat material.
Principle of filtration
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• The most important factors on which the rate of filtration then depends will be:

• (a) The drop in pressure from the feed to the far side of the filter medium.
• (b) The area of the filtering surface.
• (c) The viscosity of the filtrate.
• (d) The resistance of the filter cake.
• (e) The resistance of the filter medium and initial layers of cake.
• Two basic types of filtration processes may be identified; first, frequently referred to as
cake filtration, the particles from the suspension, which usually has a high proportion of
solids, are deposited on the surface of a porous septum.
• In the second type of filtration, depth or deep-bed filtration, the particles penetrate
into the pores of the filter medium, where impacts between the particles and the surface
of the medium are largely responsible for their removal and retention.
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Filtration theory

• It will be appreciated that this filtration process can be analyzed in terms of the flow
of fluid through a packed bed of particles, the depth of which is increasing with time.
• In practice the voidage of the cake may also change with time.
• We will first consider the case where the cake voidage is constant, i.e. an incompressible
cake.
Incompressible cake
• The filter medium is ignored and only the cake itself is considered.
• In this case the pressure drop versus liquid flow relationship is described by the Ergun
equation.
• The particle size and range of liquid flow and properties commonly used in industry give
rise to laminar flow i.e. Kozeny-Carman equation.
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1 
2
p 1 5 0 u
• Thus  o
   (1)
L s d p
2 2
 3

• For a given slurry (particle properties fixed) the resulting cake resistance is defined as:

r  1 5 0  1    ;   1 ( s p h e r i c a l p a r ti c le s )
2

2 (2)

c
dp
2
 3 s

• Thus equation 1 becomes:

p
 r c u o  (3)
L

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•
1 dV
u0 
A dt

H A

V
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A  p 
2
dV
• 
dt r c V

dV V t r c V
  c o n s ta n t 
A  p 
2
dt t V

dV 1

dt V
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t
•  C 1V
V

r c 
C1 
2 A  p 
2

p to ta l   p m    p c 
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• If the medium is assumed to behave as a packed bed of depth Hm and resistance rm
obeying the Kozeny-Carman equation, then
1 dV
p   rm H  rc  H 
(10)
m c
A d t

• The medium resistance is usually expressed as the equivalent thickness of cake Heq i.e
rm H m  rc H eq
. .
V
H eq
 eq

A
• From equation 5; (11)
where V eq is the volume of filtrate that must pass in order to create a cake of
thickness Heq . It depends only on the properties of the suspension and filter medium.
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1 dV  p  A
• Equation 10 then becomes  (12)
A dt rc  V  V e q  

• Considering operation at constant pressure drop, which is the most common case,
integrating equation 12 yields :
r c  r c 
t  V  2 V eq
2 A  p  A  p 
2
V
(13)
r c 

2 A  p 
2
• A plot of t/V versus V gives a straight line with a slope of
r c 
V eq
A  p 
2

and intercept of .

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Cake washing
• Solid particles separated by filtration often must be washed to remove filtrate from
the pores.
• There are two processes involved in washing.
• Much of the filtrate occupying the voids between particles may be removed by
displacement as clean solvent is passed through the cake.
• Removal of filtrate held in less accessible regions of the cake and from pores in the
particles takes place by diffusion into the wash water.
• The figure on the next slide shows how the filtrate concentration in the wash
solvent leaving the cake varies typically with volume of wash solvent passed.
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Removal of filtrate during washing of filter cake.

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•
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Analysis of the pressure drop – flow relationship for a compressible cake

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• Referring to the figure on the previous page, liquid flows at a superficial velocity U
through a filter cake of thickness H.
• Consider an element of the filter cake of thickness dL across which the pressure drop
is dp.
• Applying the Kozeny-Carman equation for flow through this element gives :

 d p  r U
c
(14)
dL

where r is the resistance of this element of the cake.
c

• For a compressible cake, r is a function of the pressure difference between the

c

upstream surface of the cake and the element (i.e. referring to Figure 6.3, p - p).
1
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• Let p  p  p
s 1 (15)
• Then d p  d p s (16)
dp
• Thus equation 14 becomes s
 r U
c (17)
dL

• In practice the relationship between r c and p s must be found from laboratory
experiments before Equation 15 can be used in design.
Further reading
• Familiarize yourself with different types of filtration equipment. Refer to Coulson and
Richardson Volume 2, section 7.4, page 387 .
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Worked
example 1
A leaf filter has an area of 0.5 m2 and operates at a constant pressure drop of 500 kPa.
The following test results were obtained for a slurry in water which gave rise to a filter
cake regarded as incompressible:
Volume of filtrate 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
collected (m )
3

Time (s) 140 360 660 1040 1500

Calculate:
(a) the time need to collect 0.8 m3 of filtrate at a constant pressure drop of 700 kPa;
(b) the time required to wash the resulting cake with 0.3 m3 of water at a pressure drop
of 400 kPa.
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Solution
• For filtration at constant pressure drop we use Equation 13 which indicates that if we
plot t/V versus V a straight line .
• Using the data in the table:
V (m3) 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5

t/V (s/m3 ) 1400 1800 2200 2600 3000

• A plot of t/V vs. V gives a straight line with slope 4000 s/m6 and intercept 1000
s/m3.
r c  r c 
 40 0 0 V eq 1 000
2 A  p  A  p 
2 2

• Thus and
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r c   1 1 9 2
• 0 P a . s /m

V eq  0.1 25 m
3

t 0.51 0 9
  4V 1 
V  p 
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•
r c   1 1 9 2
0 P a . s /m
V eq  0.1 25 m
3

4
dV /dt 1 .8 9 1 0 m
3
/s

4
1 .8 9 1 0 m
3
/s

4  4 0 0 1 0
3
 4
. 8 9 1 0    1 1 3
1 .08 0 m /s
 7 0 0 1
3
0 
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Practice
questions
(i) Test yourself 6.1 – 6.4, page 165, Introduction to particle technology text.
(ii) Exercise 6.7, 6.8 and 6.9, pages 167 – 168 , Introduction to particle technology
text.
(iii) Problems 7.3, 7.4 and 7.6 , pages 1158 -1159, Coulson’s and Richardson's Chemical
Engineering Volume 2, page 1158 – 1159.

 END OF
CHAPTER 7