PERCOBAAN GRANULAR FILTRATION

1. Objectives
(a) Assessing the filtering capacity of granular filter of a particular grain size, shape, and material: turbidity reduction vs. flow rate and time.

Hydraulic performance of a particular filter media: pressure drop vs. flow rate, pressure drop distribution within bed.
(b) Back washing performance: backwash water efficiency, backwashing effectiveness (amount of water necessary for backwashing).

2. Theory
Filtration is the separation of solid particles or liquid ones (droplets) from liquids and gases with the help of a lter medium also called a septum, which is essentially permeable to only the uid phase of the mixture being separated. In earlier times, this process was carried out with felts, and the word lter has a common derivation with felt. The liquid more or less thoroughly separated from the solids is called the ltrate, efuent, permeate or, more rarely, clean water. As in other separation processes, the separation of phases is never complete: Liquid adheres to the separated solids (cake with residual moisture) and the ltrate often contains some solids (solids content in the ltrate or turbidity). Filtration is effected by application of vacuum, pressure, or of centrifugal force. Vacuum ltration requires a vacuum pump. The pump evacuates the gas from a ltrate receiver, where the ltrate is separated from the gas. The ltrate is drained either by a barometric leg of at least 8 to 10 m or by a pump that is able to run on snore (i.e. with a deciency of feed liquid so that it tends to draw in air). Pressure ltration typically only requires a pump for delivering of the suspension and the lter is placed within a pressure vessel, hence less easily accessible. Centrifugal ltration is done in perforated centrifuge rotors. Various models can describe the physical process of ltration. Four idealized ltration models depicted in Figure 1. Cake ltration is the most frequently used model. Here it is assumed that the solids are deposited on a lter medium as a homogeneous porous layer with a constant permeability. Thus, if the ow rate dV/dt is constant, the pressure drop will increase linearly, proportional to the quantity of solid deposited. This model can be applied particularly well for all hard, particulate solids. Blocking ltration: The pressure drop is caused by solid particles blocking pores. Soft, gelatinous particles retained by a sieve exhibit such a behavior. If the owrate dV/dt is constant, the pressure drop increases exponentially with the quantity ltered, the number of open pores asymptotically approaching zero. The pores may belong to a lter medium (screen or lter layer) or it may be pores within a lter cake of coarse particles, which are blocked by migrating ne particles. Deep bed or depth ltration: Solid particles are retained in a deep lter layer. This takes place for example in sand lters for clarication of drinking water, which retain even colloidal particles. The typical effect of deep bed ltration is adhesion of solids to the grains of the lter layer, comparable to charcoal adsorption. Only rather big particles are retained by the screening effect. When the lter bed has been saturated with solids, the solids concentration in the ltrate leaving the bed progressively approaches that of the incoming suspension.

Cross-ow ltration: In cross-ow ltration the suspension ows with high speed tangentially to the

lter surface, preventing the formation of a cake. Only a small ow of liquid passes through the lter medium. A certain layer of solids accumulates in the boundary layer on the lter surface, and reduces the ow of ltrate. After an initial period, a dynamic equilibrium is established between convective transport of solids to the lter surface and removal of solids by turbulence and by diffusion.

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Figure 1: Filtration models In deep bed ltration (as opposed to cake ltration and cross-ow ltration), the solid particles are separated mainly by deposition within the pores of the lter medium. The lter medium may consist of a 0.53m layer of coarse grains (e.g., sand 0.3 5 mm) or a layer of a few centimeters of bers (e.g., wound or resin bonded cartridge lters) or sheets of a few mm thickness (e.g., made of cellulose). a layer of granular lter aid (e.g., precoat layer) All these lter elements have pores that are larger than the particles to be retained. The particles stick in the pores by adhesion and their accumulation weakens the ltering action and increases the pressure drop, so that the lter must be cleaned or replaced periodically. This is why deep bed ltration should be used not to recover solids from a suspension such as cake ltration, but instead to produce a very clean efuent from suspensions with low solids loading (typically <0.1 g/L) and with very ne particles. Depending on the particle size, the prevailing effects of retention are summarized in Figure 2: 1) Particles larger than the pores are trapped mechanically. This is typically true for particles 10 m. 2) Particles 1 10 m in diameter hit the solid surface mainly due to inertia effects and stick there due to surface forces. 3) Particles <0.1 m reach the solid surface mainly because of diffusion and again they stick there due to surface forces.

Figure 2.

In the range between 0.1 and 1 m the effects of both inertia and diffusion are small and a minimum in transport and hence in the effectiveness of deep bed lters is observed. The clarication effect must be summarized in an empirical lter coefcient describing the local decrease in concentration of the suspension owing through the bed: @C = C (1) @L where c is the concentration of the suspension and L is the distance from the inlet face of the lter. For unifor m conditions, this differential equation can be integrated: Page 2 of 7

(2) c = c0 exp(0L) here 0 is the initial lter coefcient of a clean, homogeneous lter bed. As soon as the bed is loaded with solids, its efciency will diminish and that is why the solution of the differential equation becomes rather difcult. Different models exist to describe the process, but they are rarely used for practical purposes. To nd a suitable lter medium in a deep bed lter which shows good retention efciency over a long cycle time, laboratory tests over a realistic cycle time have to be carried out with lter layers of realistic depth. The pressure drop in a deep bed lter can be interpreted as an effect of two different phenomena of blocking ltration: 1) The lter media exhibit a resistance to ow, which is increased by the solids deposit in the pores. The quantity of deposit is generally small compared to the pore volume, and the additional pressure loss per unit depth can be described as proportional to the local specic deposit. For constant solids concentration at the inlet and constant retention the increase in this pressure drop with time is therefore approximately constant. 2) In addition there is often a pressure drop due to deposits on the surface of the lter bed. This is a typical blocking ltration and can be described by Bouchers law. The total pressure drop of a deep bed lter at constant ow rate can then be approximated by an equation of the type p(t) = const1 t + const2 eJ t (3) For the case that the driving force is gravity, the pressure prole is shown in Figure 3B. In the static equilibrium, at ow zero, 1 m of pressure head is gained for every meter of depth. When ow has started, the pressure drop within the media increases linearly with depth. According to Carman-Kozeny a linear relationship exists between the head loss of the clean bed and the laminar flow velocity: (1 )2 v H = 180 L (4) g 3 d2 h in which: H = head loss (m) = kinematic viscosity (m /s) g = gravity acceleration (m/s ) = porosity (-) The porosity is calculated from the bed volume and the mass and density of the filter material. v = velocity (m/s) dh = hydraulic diameter of sand grains (m) L = bed height (m) The slope of this linear line can be used to calculate the hydraulic diameter of the sand grains. v 180 (1 )2 d2 h = I0 g 3 H with I0 = L . This relationship is valid only for Re 5. The quotient of and is the permeability coefficient K (m/s) which is a measure for the ease of flow through a bed of grains.

(5)

As solids are deposited in the pores, the local pressure loss will increase in the upper layers and the pressure line becomes distorted. When the pressure line touches the atmospheric pressure value, the required ow cannot be maintained and the lter should be cleaned.

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Figure 3.

Cleaning of Deep Bed Filters. Sand lters can be cleaned by backushing (backwashing). The flow is reversed to wash off deposited solids and ush them, e.g., to a wastewater station. Often air scour is used to increase the turbulence and reduce the amount of water necessary for uidization. A typical set of data of a sand lter for cleaning of water could be [12]: Medium depth 1m Medium size 0.5 1 mm (as uniform as possible) Flow rate during filtration 5 - 10 m3/(m2 h) Flow rate air scour 60 m3/(m2 h) for 10 min Flow rate water backflow 15 30 m3/(m2 h) for 3 8 min after air scour During backow the sand grains are classied, the smallest ones are entrained to t he top, the coarse ones sink to the bottom of the lter bed. This effect is undesired, since it leads to premature blocking of the top layer. Therefore it is important to use sand with grain sizes as uniform as possible. During backwashing the flow is in the transitional region between laminar and turbulent flow. The CarmanKozeny formule is not valid anymore. For this type of flow only empirical formulae can be used. A good approach is: 0:8 (1 e )1:8 v 1:2 H = 130 (6) :8 Le g 3 d1 e h In which + E e = porosity of the expanded bed = 1+ E E = (Le L)/L = expansion of the bed Le = height of the expanded bed. When the flow rate is increased up to the certain value, the pressure drop ( H) will be equal to the bed height and the bed start to expand. This is the minimum of the backwashing flow rate and can be found from the following relation: g f w 3 e v 1:2 = d1:8 (7) 0 : 8 130 w (1 e )0:8 h .

2.3

Characteristics of the filter material

The filter material used in this experiment consists of a sieved fraction of particles of variable size between the lowest and widest mesh. A sieve analysis gives information about the grain size distribution.

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Coefficient of uniformity. The spread in grain sizes should not be too big to avoid stratification during backwashing. The spread is characterized by the coefficient of uniformity, U = d60/d10. Preference is given to a value of U 1.2. Specific diameter and shape factor. The so-called specific diameter of the grains can be found from a sieve analysis with: W W1 W2 W3 Wn (8) = p + p + p + p ds '1 S1 S2 '2 S2 S3 '3 S3 S4 'n Sn Sn+1 in which: W = total weight of the sand sample Wi = weight on sieve i S = mesh of sieve i = shape factor for fraction between sieve i and sieve i+1
i i

(g) (g) (mm) (-)

The ratio between the hydraulic diameter and the specific diameter gives the shape factors for the different hydraulic conditions: dh 'e = for expanded beds (9) ds dh 'h = for high porosity beds (10) ds dh 'l = for low porosity beds (11) ds Effective diameter The hydraulic diameter for filter materials with unknown shape factors can be approximated in practice by the so-called effective diameter de, defined as the d10 from a sieve analysis. The shape factor is determined as (12) ' = de=ds

3. Experimental set-up and procedure

The apparatus for conducting the experiment consists of an acrylic column with a diameter of 67 mm, two plastic vessels and a set of piping system. Higher turbidity water is collected in the lower vessels and pumped to the top of the column. The turbid water will drain down by gravity through the granular bed and the rotameter to the upper vessels. The piping system provides an easy way of changing upward and downward flow direction (see figure 4). Connections for pressure gauges are spirally mounted on the column. The pressure is measured with piezometric water manometers.

Head loss through bed test

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) Fully fill the upper vessel with the clean (tap) water. Fully open valves V1, V2, V4, and V8. Closed valves V3, V5, V7, and V6. Redirect the over flow tube to the upper vessel. Switch on the pump and let the water flow filling the column until overflowing occur.

If pumping fails, call technician for assistance.

(f) Observe the water levels at the manometer. If the water levels do not equal, check for the presence of air bubbles along the tube. Squeeze or tap the tube until it is free of bubble and the levels become equal. (g) Start the test by opening the valve V6 to get the required initial flow rate is achieved. (h) Observe the manometer reading for each observation point. Do not increase the flow rate if the manometer level reaches the lowest reading board.

Filtration operation
(a) Fully fill the lower vessel with the raw water of higher turbidity. Don't forget to measure the turbidity. Empty the upper vessel to collect the filtered water draining down from the column. (b) Fully open valves V1, V2, V4, and V7. (c) Closed valves V3, V5, V8, and V6.

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(d) Switch on the pump and let the water flow filling the column until overflowing occur.

If pumping fails, call technician for assistance.

(e) Observe the water levels at the manometer. If the water levels do not equal, check for the presence of air bubbles along the tube. Squeeze or tap the tube until it is free of bubble and the levels become equal. (f) Start the filtration by opening the valve V6 until the required initial filtration flow rate is achieved. The maximum allowable filtration flow rate is 9 liter per minute in order to get a constant hydraulic head over the filter. (g) Monitor the filtration rate, the manometer levels, the turbidity of raw and filtered waters and the volume of the collected water every minute or shorter. (h) Run the filtration until there is no filtered water flowing which indicating that blocking occurs. During filtration, fill up the content of the lower vessel if the level drops to less than 30% of the top. Discard the content of the upper vessel if it is become full.

Backwashing operation
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h) (i) (j) (k) With the pump still running, close the valves V4 and V6. Switch off the pump and close the valves V2 and V7. Redirect the over flow pipe from the lower vessel to the external vessel or sink. Make sure the upper vessel contains full of clean water suitable for backwashing purpose. Add the clean water from the tap water if the level drops. Close the valve V1. Open the valves V3, V5 and V8. Measure the granular bed height. Switch on the pump. Open the valve V1 slowly, start the timer and observe the flow rate and the bed height. Take note when the bed becomes fluidized and the entrapped particles (sediment) washed out of the bed. When the backwash water coming out of the bed is clear, close the valve V3 and switch off the pump. Measure the amount of the backwash water used and the settled bed height. Observe any appearance of segregation of the bed.

Manometer

V5

V6

V2

V4 V8 V3

Upper Vessel

V7

Lower Vessel

V1

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Figure 4. Experimental apparatus diagram

4. Observation and calculation

During the experiment, at least the following data should be collected: (a) Head loss through the bed test Manometer reading vs. flow rate (b) Filtration operation Water flow rate vs. time Manometer reading vs. flow rate Raw water turbidity vs. time Filtered water (product) turbidity vs. time (c) Backwash operation Manometer reading vs. flow rate Bed height Volume of water consumed. By using the collected data, calculate or construct: Plot of pressure head vs. bed height for various time. Prove that the equation of Karman-Kozeny is valid. Plot of the filtered water turbidity vs. initial filtration flow rate. Filtration capacity vs. initial filtration flow rate.

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