Experimental investigation into the filtration and reverse flow cleaning modes on cylindrical and tapered rigid ceramic filters

This paper describes the equipment test facility and setup that has been developed in the laboratory and the investigation into both the filtration and reverse flow modes of low-density rigid ceramic filters at ambient conditions. The purpose is to study the fluid behavior by conducting experiments to investigate the pressure drop and the velocity profile along a filter element. Two different ceramic filter media were used in the majority of this work. Cerafil XS-1000 is the current product from Cerel (cylindrical) and the tapered filter, which is a novel design of the ceramic filter tailor made for this study. Both the filtration and reverse flow cleaning results suggest that a more uniform pressure generation is found in tapered filters than it is the cylindrical filters. The origin of nonuniformity in pressure difference across the wall, in both the filtration and cleaning modes, is internal (axial) pressure drop that can be reduced by reducing the axial gas velocity, which obviously takes its highest value towards the open end (in both filtration and cleaning modes).