The August meeting of the Southwest Chapter of the American Filtration & Separations Society was held Tuesday, August 11, on the topic of Asymmetrical Cake Filtration on Tubular Elements and the Effects on Scalability. Bradley Moakler, North American Regional Manager for DrM Inc., presented.

Proper design of a solid-liquid tubular element filter requires a thorough understanding of all variables within a process. Most small-scale filtration studies are performed with either a downward flow nutsche pressure filter or vacuum filter due to simplicity and overall space and batch requirements. Although this may produce successful results in terms of quality and throughput, several other factors such as cake homogeneity, particle sedimentation, and cake discharge cannot be effectively assessed which can present inaccuracies in sizing and operating a commercial tubular element filter. This presentation examines the inaccuracies that can develop upon scaling to a tubular element filter.

Bradley MoaklerBradley Moakler holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno. After graduating, he worked as a process engineer for three years in the separations circuit at Molycorp, a rare earth mineral processing mine. He is currently working as North American Regional Manager for DrM Inc., a subsidiary of DrM, Dr. Mueller AG Switzerland, and has been with the company for approximately five years. His work mainly involves sales engineering, process development, and business development.