The influence of particle collective characteristics on cake filtration results

Several years of collaborative work, undertaken mainly at the LSM in Caracas, have been performed in order to achieve a better knowledge of the correlation between filter cake properties and the characteristics of the cake forming particle collective. Common sense suggests that a connection should exist between cake properties and particle characteristics. However, due to its complex character, it has been the prevailing opinion that the only way to know cake properties is to measure them, which is a severe drawback for process engineers who are compelled to make forecasts about what happens if changes in particle size occur during a technical process. In this context, the results of this work provide some progress to overcome the described difficulties. By comprehensive investigation of various particle size distributions and different materials it could be demonstrated that the cake properties like porosity, permeability, irreducible saturation, void size distribution index and mean capillary pressure can be successfully correlated with particle collective characteristics like mean particle size, particle size distribution width and particle shape. These relationships are strongly dependent on the cake-building mode and are substance-specific. © 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH and Co. KGaA, Weinheim.