In the manufacturing of chemicals, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, bioenergy etc., after the initial mixing reactions, there is always the necessity to remove the mother liquor from the process slurry. In some cases, the liquid is the valuable component, in some cases it is the solids and in other cases it is both compounds. The nature of the requirements will determine the type of equipment needed for the separation process.

Generally, after the initial mixing – reactions, there will be bulk separation to remove the larger product solids or unwanted solids. This is the easy step. As processes have become more sophisticated and quality requirements increased, there is a trend to be able to remove the residual particle fines from the slurries. These fines are very small, typically in the 1 – 5 micron range and smaller and are very low in concentration down to ppm levels. This paper provides a brief overview of crude separation equipment and then continues with a detailed view of technologies that can remove – recover small particle fines. The general term for this is “clarification” technologies and this will cover alternatives to traditional bag and cartridge filtration systems.
The paper concludes with a review of the installations in chemical, refinery, bioenergy and pharmaceutical plants to provide engineers with new and creative ways of thinking to evaluate process filtration problems and solutions.

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