CLARIFYING FILTERS An Assignment Submitted for the partial fulfillment of the course of Food Engineering- I By VASU CHOPRA (Roll

no- 011,V semester) To Ms. Renu Khedkar

AMITY INSTITUTE OF FOOD TECHNOLOGY AMITY UNIVERSITY, NOIDA

INTRODUCTION

Clarifying filters remove small amounts of solids or liquid droplets from either liquids or gases. The particles are trapped inside the filter medium or on its surfaces. Clarification differs from screening, in that pores in the filter medium are largersometimes much larger- than the particles to be removed. The particles are caught by surface forces and immobilized o the surfaces or within the flow channels, where they reduce the effective diameter of the channels but usually do not block them completely. The usual objective of clarifying filtration is to separate solids at a very low concentration from a liquid stream. The liquid may be drinking (potable) water, wine, beer, 04 etc. and it is usually the liquid which is the valuable product. The techniques used in clarification processes include: deep-bed, precoat, candle and cartridge filtration all of which involve capture of particles inside the porous mass of the filter. Such techniques produce clearer filtrates than those obtained in clarification by sedimentation.

CAPTURE MECHANISMS
All clarifying filtration techniques include at least one of the following mechanisms: a) Straining b) Sedimentation c) Interception d) Inertial impaction e) Diffusion f) Hydro dynamic interaction g) Electrostatic interaction h) Electrical double layer repulsion

i) van der Waals forces It is assumed that once a particle has touched the surface of the target grain it will remain attached to that surface, in the absence of unbalanced repulsive forces, and is effectively captured from the liquid flow. The particle may be made to detach later, during filter cleaning, but only after substantially altering the operating conditions. Straining. This is the simplest of the collection mechanisms and occurs when the particle diameter is larger than the constriction through which the fluid flow streamlines pass. The grain size plays a important role in this mechanism as narrower passages are found with smaller grained collection media. Sedimentation. When the fluid flow is directed downwards through a filter, gravitational sedimentation effects will cause particles to settle vertically through the flow streamlines, as the latter distort around the collector.

Interception. If the suspended particle radius is greater than the distance between the flow streamline which contains the particle and the collecting media grain, then the suspended particle w ill contact the target, in the absence of any repulsive mechanisms. Inertial Impaction and Bounce. Whenever fluid flow streamlines change direction it is possible that

particles may be less able to alter direction because of their greater inertia. If a collection surface is nearby the particles may make contact with the target before becoming trapped in another flow streamline. Diffusion. All particles suspended within a fluid are subject to bombardment by the surrounding fluid molecules. Small solid particles may acquire sufficient momentum from the fluid molecules to cause the solid particle to move. It will continue to do so until more bombardment causes the particle to change direction. This Brownian motion of the suspended particle may cause it to approach the surface of a target.

TECHNIQUES USED
1) Deep-Bed Filtration: These have been in common use for well over one hundred years. The principle involved is used in nature to filter duly water through porous rock, in potable water wells and springs. Commercial deepbed filters are of simple construction consisting of an enclosed cylindrical metal tank and a pressure vessel or open rectangular concrete tank containing a packed bed of solids through which the process fluid to be filtered is passed. The common types of deep bed filter are:

Slow Sand Filter- Fine grains of sand are used which leads to efficient suspended particle removal, but slow filtration rates. Relatively shallow beds are employed and biological activity on the surface is common. The initial sand layers

become clogged first and cleaning is by removal and replacement of these layers. The deposit formed on the d a c e is sometimes called schmutzdecke.

Rapid filter- A coarser grain size, and sometimes a narrower size distribution than slow filters are used; often pressurized flow is employed. A variety of rapid filters exist, for example, downflow, upflow, mixed-media and continuous.

Direct Filtration(Contact Flocculation)- This is a mixture of filtration and flocculation in which the suspension entering the bed has been flocculated, but the flocs have not fully formed prior to bed entry. The technique is applied to suspensions of low concentration of colloidal matter. 2) Precoat Filtration: Precoat filtration is the application of a filter aid on a mainly conventional filter under clean conditions; i.e. in the absence of suspended solids other than the filter aid, to form a highly porous and uniform filter cake. The suspension to be filtered is then introduced onto the filter. Clarification by filtration results by the action of the filter aid trapping the suspended solids within the filter aid cake. If the filtration equipment is continuous by nature, e.g. a rotary vacuum filter, a thick filter aid cake may be employed, alternatively, if the filtration is conducted in a batch vessel thinner filter aid cakes are usually employed. 3) Cartridge Filtration:

Cartridge filters are a very important means of effecting a clarification and have found use in a wide variety of industries. Advances in membrane manufacture have enabled cartridge suppliers to use filtration media capable of retaining all particulates down to 0.1 m in diameter, and with significant removal of colloidal material below this size. Cartridge filters can be classified into three groups: depth, surface and edge, with additional subdivision.

4) Filter Candles: Filter candles for clarification generally rely on the use of a precoat to prevent media blinding. In many respects their operation is similar to that described for batch precoat pressure filtration. Cylindrical candle diameters of 10 mm or more are used, with many candles inside a pressure vessel.

They usually operate vertically with the dirty precoat back-flushed off the support candle. Bottom discharge of the solids is then followed by coating the candles with precoat before recommencing clarification.

REFERENCE:
1)UNIT OPERATIONS OF CHEMCAL ENGINEERING Warren L. McCabe, Julian C. Smith, Peter Harriot 2)SOLID-LIQUID FILTERATION AND SEPERATION TECHNOLOGY A. Rushton, A. S. Ward, R. G. Holdich