PREDICTIVE ANALYSIS OF SOLIDS FILTRATION WITH MULTI-LAYERED FILTERED MEDIA

Solid-liquid filtration, which is primarily reducing the amount of particulate contamination can be controlled either as a surface or as a depth filtration mechanism. While surface area control is quite common, understanding depth filtration is a bit more complex. Solid-Liquid filtration entails fine tuning of several parameters with respect to fluid flow and the filter media characteristics. The differential pressure across a given filter surface area that determines the life of a filter, in relation to these parameters, is explained by Darcys law. The liquid permeability of the media is a characteristic of the filter properties such as pore size distribution, pore volume and depth of the media. Although multi-layered filters are well-known in industry, very few studies have systematically quantified their filtration performance, and even less have characterized the effect of multi-layered structure on depth filter performance. This study aims to determine the permeability of multi-layered filter media as opposed to that of the individual layers, so as to establish a predictive relation with the characterized properties of the layers included as well as operating conditions. The filtration efficiency and mechanism are studied for single versus multiple layers of non-woven melt blown media based on filter inlet and outlet fluid evaluations.