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9 views

part_4

Uploaded by

Ahmad Aqeel
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© © All Rights Reserved
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1

Introduction and Overview

1.1 General Aspects of Solid–Liquid Separation


in General and Cake Filtration in Detail
Cake filtration represents one of the several different mechanical methods to
separate particles from liquids. Cake filtration offers, in comparison to other
mechanical particle–liquid separation techniques, the advantageous possibility
of direct solids posttreatment. This enables particle washing by cake permeation
and the comparatively lowest mechanically achievable solid moisture contents.
Particularly, if low residual moisture content of the solids is an important issue,
cake filtration is the preferred technique. Unfortunately, not in every case,
cake filtration can be realized from the technical and/or physical point of view.
Figure 1.1 shows the principal steps of a cake filtration cycle.
After feeding the filter apparatus with slurry, a filter cake is formed under the
influence of a pressure difference above and beneath the filter medium. If neces-
sary, the cake can be washed in the next step to get rid of soluble substances in the
liquid, which are still present in the wet cake. Finally, the filter cake is deliquored
to displace further liquid from its porous structure. At the end of the process, the
cake is discharged from the filter apparatus, and if necessary, the entire apparatus
or the filter medium has to be cleaned.
The residual moisture content of the separated solids is considerably influ-
encing the efficiency of a subsequent thermal drying and thus the energy
consumption of the whole separation process. As a rule, the thermal methods
are usually quite energy-intensive compared with the mechanical liquid separa-
tion. In the literature, guiding numbers of more than factor 100 can be found
between the energy demands of mechanical and thermal deliquoring [1, 2]. In
comparison to mechanical methods, thermal methods require not only heating
of the wet system to the boiling point of the liquid but also a phase transition from
the liquid to the gaseous aggregate state. The appropriate vaporization enthalpy
must be raised. For this reason and also because of the often-undesirable load of
temperature-sensitive products, it is in most cases advantageous to separate as
much liquid as possible at low temperatures by mechanical means. For physical
reasons, a final rest of liquid remains in any case after the mechanical liquid
separation in the particle structure. However, this portion of liquid can only be
removed from the solid material by thermal means. If a completely dry powder

Wet Cake Filtration: Fundamentals, Equipment, and Strategies, First Edition. Harald Anlauf.
© 2019 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. Published 2019 by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.
2 1 Introduction and Overview

Slurry Cake Cake


feed formation washing

Filtrate Filtrate

Apparatus Cake Cake


cleaning discharge deliquoring

Filtrate

Figure 1.1 Process steps of a cake filtration.

is required as the final product, one of the tasks for the optimization of the whole
separation process consists in determining the most favorable point of transfer
from the mechanical to the thermal separation step. This interconnection point
is very variable and defined by the requirements of the selected thermal drying
process. For spray drying, a pumpable and sprayable slurry is still required,
whereas the solids should be deliquored to the mechanical limit for a fluidized
bed drying because the cake behaves brittle and powdery in that case. At the
interface of these two basic processes for solid–liquid separation, combined
mechanical–thermal processes have also been developed and established such
as centrifuge dryers, nutsche dryers, and in recent times continuously operating
steam pressure filters. The advantages of these systems consist in synergies,
which result in energy conservation and compact and simplified process design.
1.1 General Aspects of Solid–Liquid Separation in General and Cake Filtration in Detail 3

Filtration

Separation in electric
Density separation or magnetic fields

Depth filtration Electrophoresis


Flotation
Sedimentation Surface filtration
Magnetic separation

Centrifugation Pressure
Cake filtration Cross-flow filtration Blocking filtration
Hydrostatic Vacuum
Disc Conti Batch
Pan
Drum Belt

Figure 1.2 Physical principles of solid–liquid separation.

As mentioned before, the application of cake filtration is of course not possible


in every case but limited by some boundary conditions. For example, in the case of
submicron particles and very low solid concentration in the slurry, cake filtration
makes no sense because of very high cake pressure loss of the cake and large quan-
tities of liquid, which must penetrate such a tight cake structure. If the boundary
conditions for cake filtration are not fulfilled, alternative separation techniques
such as density separation, depth, cross-flow, or blocking filtration must be used.
To enhance the filtration performance, electric or magnetic particle properties
may be utilized additionally by the realization of an electric or magnetic field in
the process room. In the literature, several comprehensive descriptions of more
or less the entire technology are published [3–8]. Figure 1.2 gives an overview of
the different available physical principles of mechanical particle–liquid separa-
tion.
Density separation is based on a difference of density between solid particles
and liquid. If the solid density is greater, the particles are settling into the direc-
tion of gravity or a centrifugal field and are deposited at a solid wall as sediment,
whereby the liquid is displaced to the opposite direction. Static continuously
operating thickeners or clarifiers and many types of batch and continuous solid
bowl centrifuges are based on this separation principle. If the particles have
less density than liquid, they will float on the liquid surface. Also, particles
of greater density than liquid float by froth flotation. For this purpose, gas
bubbles are generated in the slurry, and if the particles are hydrophobic, they
can adhere to the bubbles and float on the surface. This technique is often used
to separate hydrophobic from hydrophilic particles of different materials in
sorting processes of mineral beneficiation or waste paper recycling. If necessary,

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