Particle technology

CE510
chapter 7: FILTRATION

Musango Lungu, D Eng

School of Mines and Mineral Sciences

Chemical engineering department
FILTRATION
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.
FILTRATION
• Fluid flows through a filter medium by virtue of a across a medium.
• Filters are also classified into those that operate with atmospheric pressure
on the upstream side of the filter medium and those that operate with
atmospheric pressure on the upstream side and a vacuum on the
downstream side.
• Pressure above atmosphere may be developed by the force of gravity
acting on a column of liquid, pump, blower or centrifugal force.
• Most industrial filters are pressure filters, vacuum filters or centrifugal
separators.
• There are also continuous and discontinuous.
• Filters are divided into three main groups: cake filters, clarifying filters and
cross flow filters.
FILTRATION
• 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.
FILTRATION
• 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
FILTRATION
• 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.
FILTRATION
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.
FILTRATION
1   
2
• Thus (1)p  1502uo 
L  s d p2 3
• For a given slurry (particle properties fixed) the resulting cake resistance is
defined as:

150 1   
2
2
(2) rc  2 3
;  s  1 (spherical particles)
dp 

• Thus equation 1 becomes:

p
(3)  rc uo 
L
FILTRATION
• If V is the volume of filtrate (liquid) passed in a time t and dV/dt is the
instantaneous volumetric flow rate of filtrate at any time t, then
superficial filtrate velocity at time t; u0 
1 dV (4)
A dt
• Each unit volume of filtrate is assumed to deposit a certain mass of
particles, which form a certain volume of cake.
• This is expressed as , the volume of cake formed by the passage of unit
volume of filtrate :

HA
 (5)
V
FILTRATION
dV A  (6)
p
2
• Therefore equation 3 becomes 
dt rc V
Constant rate filtration
• If the filtration rate dV/dt is constant, then the pressure drop across the
filter cake will increase in direct proportion to the volume of filtrate
passed, V. t rc V
dV V  2
• Thus   constant and equation 6 becomes (7)
dt t V A  p 
Constant pressure drop filtration

• If is constant then dV 1

dt V
FILTRATION
• Integration of equation 6 gives t  C1V (8)
V
rc 
where C1  (9)
2 A2  p 

Inclusion of filter medium resistance

• The total resistance to flow is the sum of the resistance of the cake and
the filter medium. Hence,

= +

i.e.
ptotal   pm    pc 
FILTRATION
• 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 m  rc  H c  (10)
A dt

• The medium resistance is usually expressed as the equivalent thickness of

cake Heq i.e. rm H m  rc H eq .
Veq
H eq 
• From equation 5; A (11)
where Veq 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.
FILTRATION 1 dV  p  A
• Equation 10 then becomes  (12)
A dt rc  V  Veq 

• Considering operation at constant pressure drop, which is the most

common case, integrating equation 12 yields :
t rc rc
 V 2 Veq
V 2 A  p 
2
A  p  (13)
rc
• A plot of t/V versus V gives a straight line with a slope of
2 A  p 
2

rc
and intercept of Veq .
A  p 
2
FILTRATION
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.
FILTRATION

Removal of filtrate during washing of filter cake.

FILTRATION
Compressible cake
• In practice many materials give rise to compressible filter cakes.
• A compressible cake is one whose cake resistance rc increases with applied
pressure difference .
• Change in rc is due mainly to the effect on the cake voidage ( see
Kozeny-Carman equation).
• Fluid drag on the particles in the cake causes a force which is transmitted
through the bed.
• Particles deeper in the bed experience the sum of the forces acting on the
particles above.
• The force on the particles causes the particle packing to become more dense,
i.e. cake voidage decreases. In the case of soft particles, the shape or size of
the particles may change, adding to the increase in cake resistance.
 FILTRATION

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

FILTRATION
• 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 :

(14)
dp
  rc U
dL
where rc is the resistance of this element of the cake.

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

the upstream surface of the cake and the element (i.e. referring to Figure 6.3,
p1- p).
FILTRATION
• Let ps  p1  p (15)
• Then dp  dps (16)
• Thus equation 14 becomes dps  rc U (17)
dL

• In practice the relationship between rc and ps 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 .
FILTRATION
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 (m3 )
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.
FILTRATION
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.

rc rc
• Thus  4000 and Veq  1000
2 A  p 
2
A  p 
2
FILTRATION
3500

3000

2500
t/V (s/m3)

2000
Equation y = a + b*x
Plot t/V
1500
Weight No Weighting
Intercept 1000 ± 0
1000 Slope 4000 ± 0
Residual Sum of Square 0
Pearson's r 1
500 R-Square(COD) 1
Adj. R-Square 1

0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6

V (m3)
FILTRATION
• With A = 0.5 m and Pa gives
3 rc  1 109 Pa.s/m 2
and Veq  0.125 m3 . t 0.5 109
• Substitution of above values in eqn 13 yields V   p   4V  1
which applies to the filtration of the same slurry in the same filter at any
pressure drop.
(a) To calculate the time required to pass 0.8 m3 of filtrate at a pressure
drop of 700 kPa, we substitute V = 0.8 m3 and Pa in the above equation,
giving t = 2400 s ( 40 min) .
(b) During the filtration the cake thickness is continuously increasing and,
since the pressure drop is constant, the volume flow rate of filtrate will
continuously decrease.
FILTRATION
• Filtration rate is given by eqn 12; Substituting the volume of filtrate passed
at the end of the filtration period, V = 0.8 m3 , rc  1109 Pa.s/m 2 ,
Veq  0.125 m3 and Pa, we find the filtration rate at the
4 3
end of the filtration period is dV / dt  1.89  10 m /s.
• If we assume that the wash water has the same physical properties as the
filtrate, then during a wash period at a pressure drop of 700 kPa the
wash rate is 1.89 104 m3 / s . However, the applied pressure drop
during the wash cycle is 400 kPa. According to Equation 12 the liquid
flow rate is directly proportional to the applied pressure3 drop, and so
4  400  10  4 3
flow rate of wash water at 400 kPa = 1.89  10   3 
 1.08  10 m /s
 700 10 

• Hence, the time needed to pass 0.3 m3 of wash water at this rate is 2778 s
(or 46.3 min).
FILTRATION
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