Why is filtration important for industrial applications?

Jan. 10, 2023

What is the purpose of filtration - and why is filtration important for industrial applications?

The most common uses for filtration include:

Protecting Equipment from Ingesting Harmful Contaminants
Removing Contaminants to Purify air and gas streams
Protecting Personnel and the Work Environment
Separating and Isolating Desirable Products from the Air Stream
Another reason why industrial filtration is important is that water contamination in oil can cause a fluid breakdown, accelerate metal surface fatigue, reduce lubricating film thickness, corrode components, and lead to losing dielectric strength in insulations.

Filters are systems or elements that remove substances such as dust, dirt, electronic signals, etc., as they pass through filtering media or devices. Filters are available for filtering air or gases, fluids, as well as electrical and optical phenomena.

What Are the Types of Industrial Filtration Processes?

Membrane Filtration

The membrane filtration process produces many food and beverage products, such as low-fat/no-fat dairy products and whey proteins. The liquid is fed through a membrane system, which divides the feed into two separate streams. Types of membrane filtration include microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, and reverse osmosis. Transmembrane pressure is the force required to push water through a membrane.

Centrifugal Filtration

Centrifugal filtration is executed through the rotational movement of the filter body. There is no preparation of any filter medium. During the defined rotational speed of equipment, the high-density solids or liquids are separated from the low-density fluid.

Gravity Filtration

Gravity filtration is when the suspended solid is removed from the liquid applications through the flow direction from top-level to the lower surface. This filtration is performed at atmospheric pressure.

Vacuum Filtration

Vacuum filtration is when suspended dust particles are removed from atmospheric air through suction or at a static pressure level.

Chill / Cold Filtration

Chill or cold filtration is achieved after maintaining a required lower temp. This filtration helps remove available fatty acids, proteins, or esters that can be mixed in fluid during the previous processes. After maintaining a required lower temperature, fluid passes through a filter medium to remove the chilled suspended particles. This filtration helps avoid sedimentation during the final use of filtrate at a lower temperature.

Hot Filtration

Hot filtration removes a small number of impurities from crystalline compounds. The crystalline compound is dissolved in a suitable solvent at an appropriate high temperature, eliminating the impurities from the liquid compound through a medium and slowly cooling down to get the clear recrystallized combinations.

Multi-Layer Filtration

Multi-layer filtration uses a filter tank that has been arranged by different types and sizes of gravels which filter the avoidable particles between arrangement spaces. Coal carbon placed in a carbon bed is helpful to remove the unwanted application color and odor.

Mechanical Filtration

Mechanical filtration is a modern innovation that caters to industrial filtration requirements at operating pressure higher than atmospheric one. This is the filtration process which can be performed through an arrangement of the medium within the main filter body.

Surface Filtration

Surface filtration uses an arrangement of a medium to work as a barrier for unwanted particles, removes them from the primary fluid stream, and stops them on the main contact surface of the medium. A simple example is the separation of tea dust from tea.

Depth Filtration

Depth filtration uses an arrangement of the medium with a graded density structure that separates and collects the different dust particles within its graded structure. For example, domestic RO has a filter element with a thicker surface for filtration. These filters are manufactured through a graded denser structure that filters the particles from drinking water at different system layers.

What Are the Industrial Uses of Filtration?

The main uses of industrial filtration are protecting equipment from consuming harmful contaminants, removing contaminants to purify air, gas, and water streams, protecting personnel and the work environment, and separating and isolating the desired product from the air or water stream. Filtration in industrial manufacturing protects machinery and equipment as well as workers and customers.

Industrial filtration uses these different types of filters to filter either gas or fluids.

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