4 replies to this topic

[Rizalchoi87]

Hi everyone,

 

I have a product-ester in my plant containing activated carbon which will be filtered off. The activated carbon has ~5% of particle size below 5micron while my polishing filter size is only 5micron. So all those particles size below 5micron will be carrying over in the product stream (unable to be filtered). Can anyone help me on how to improve this situation?

 

Regards,

Rizal

[breizh]

Rizal ,

Did you talk to your cartridges' supplier ? They should help you .

 

Good luck.

 

Breizh

Edited by breizh, 30 December 2014 - 12:57 AM.

[Rizalchoi87]

Dear Breizh,

 

Thanks for your response. Already talked to supplier and they suggested me to recirculate the product stream until get clear stream. Unfortunately, after trying several times the product appearance still unacceptable (black particles still there). Any ideas?

 

By the way will refer to you attachment as well.

 

Regards,

Rizal

[breizh]

Rizal ,

Any chance to get AC with a different PSD , less than 5% below 5 microns ? May be the way to solve your problem if you cannot improve the filtration by changing the aperture of the cartridge or using different media . In one of my operation we are using paper as a second layer to eliminate AC contamination ....

 

Good luck,

Breizh

[Bee5]

Hi Rizal,

 

In theory, the re-circulation should work, but only if you do it for some time (and for a reasonable volume through the filter), to give the 'bed' time to build up. You may need to increase flow rate (try 1.5 times higher than average running flow rate), and time in order to get a good filter bed inside the ACF. Can your pump speed be adjusted to a higher flow rate? How long did you re-circulate for?

 

Also, if you stopped re-circulation to reconnect the filter into a forward flow configuration, you may have 'dropped' the bed that you built up with circulation. You need to do a very quick change from re-circulation to forward flow to ensure that the filter ACF experiences flow throughout the changeover. Also, it may seem obvious, but your re-circulation flow should be in the same direction as forward flow.

 

If re-circulation does not work, then I suspect that the particle size distribution may be fragmented, with lots of large and lots of small particles with nothing in between to build up a bed.

 

Breizh may be onto something, cellulose sheets may assist with catching breakthrough before your final filter. It is worth a try, because it is a cheaper and simpler solution than upgrading your filter with a circulation loop; and can be done in-line so it does not use up run-time like doing a re-circulation at the start of each filter run.

 

Regards,

Bjanka 

Edited by Bee5, 05 January 2015 - 07:52 AM.