Automatic Filter Presses/Cake Discharge

Conventional horizontal filter presses suffer from one major disadvantage that operators must be present during cake discharge to assure that all cakes are removed (to avoid potential leakage and/or damage).

To solve this problem, the automatic pressure filter (APF or tower press) was developed based on a Russian patent. However, these APFs suffer from the disadvantages of high cost, limited filter area, and mechanical complexity.

Many devices have been developed as add-ons to the lower cost, horizontal filter presses to aid in cake discharge (i.e., traveling cloths, shakers, vibrators, rappers, etc.), but most suffer from mechanical failure and do not guarantee 100% cake discharge.

A new positive cake scraper design has been introduced at Achema 2000 that assures 100% cake removal from the cloths. This is accomplished by positively scraping each and every cloth to remove even very sticky cakes. As a result, the horizontal filter press can now be considered to be truly automatic without operator attention.

Photograph courtesy of Andritz/Netzsch Filtration, Inc.	Photograph courtesy of Andritz/Netzsch Filtration, Inc.
© 2004 American filtration and Separations Society