A filter press uses permeable membrane filter elements and pressure to remove fluids from sludge, leaving a semi-moist cake of solids. It can recover desirable solids or remove undesirable solids and is commonly used in food, pharmaceutical, chemical, and water treatment plants. The press is made up of chambers filled with slurry, compressed, and the filtered solids cake is collected. The filter press is suitable for a wide range of sludge types and is a simple process that requires little manpower.
A filter press is a device that uses a combination of permeable membrane filter elements and pressure to remove fluids from sludge. This process typically involves filling a multi-chamber press with the slurry and reducing the internal chamber volumes by applying pressure. This process forces fluids out through the permeable membrane, thus leaving a semi-moist cake of solids in the press. The filter press can be used to recover desirable solids from transport suspensions or to remove undesirable solids from water filtration processes. Filter presses are commonly used in the manufacturing of food and pharmaceutical products, and in chemical and water treatment plants.
Many production and purification processes require the separation of solids and their fluid carriers that make up sludge suspensions. For example, food and pharmaceutical production lines must remove valuable powders or granular end products from the water that carries them through the manufacturing process. Water treatment plants, on the other hand, must remove unwanted solid contaminants to start the wastewater remediation process. The filter press is one of the filtering methods that can handle the speeds and quantities of slurry involved in these processes. These filters are also some of the most efficient and cost effective systems due to the low number of moving parts and system steps involved.
Filter presses are generally made up of a series of chambers formed by hollow sheet septa. The baffle surfaces are coated with a filtration medium, typically a filter cloth membrane. When the press is open and empty, the spaces or chambers between the plates are large enough. To start the filtration process, all chambers are pumped full of slurry. Once this stage is complete, a hydraulic or electric piston presses the plates together; it then compresses the slurry-filled chambers and squeezes the liquid from the slurry through the filter membranes and into the internal spaces of the plates. Interconnected filtered ducts incorporated into each plate then drain the liquid.
When the compression cycle is complete, the press is reopened and the plates are picked up in sequence. The filtered solids cake comes out and is collected for later use or disposal and the cycle is restarted. After a predetermined number of filter cycles, the plate filters are washed to remove accumulated sludge. The filter press is suitable for a wide range of sludge types, including hydrophilic organic and inorganic sludge, hydrophobic inorganic sludge, and oil-based sludge. The filter press process is simple and does not require much manpower; however, some conditioning of the membrane filter is required to prevent excessive sludge adherence with some types of suspensions such as hydrophilic slurries.
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