Analysis of cake filtration data - A critical assessment of conventional filtration theory

Experimental results of constant-pressure cake filtration of aqueous suspensions of four kinds of particles: CaCo3, Kaolin, Kromasil and TiO2 is presented. The data reported consist mainly of filtration performance results, that is, the cumulative filtrate volume and cake thickness as functions of time, which were obtained using a newly developed multifunction test cell. Based on these data, the medium resistance and the average cake specific resistance at various operating pressure were evaluated and corroborated with the results obtained from the compression-permeability (C-P) cell measurements. The filtration results were also compared with predictions from the solutions of the appropriate volume-averaged equations of continuity using different p(1) - p(s) relationships. Generally speaking, with the appropriate p(1) - p(s) relationship, agreement between experiments and prediction was satisfactory. (c) 2006 American Institute of Chemical Engineers.