Filter papers

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rickzeien

Well-known member
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Nov 14, 2017
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I am not sure if anyone else will find this document as useful as I did but I thought I would post it here for anyone that wants to learn about what filter papers to use for different needs. If I have posted in the wrong place please move it or let me know and I will.

https://www.simada.co.il/images/filters/Whatman_filter_paper_guide_en.pdf

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The link works in my email and when pasted it in my browser but it is not working here in the forum. Not sure why.

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I used only high-dollar Whatman papers for about 15 years, when other people were paying the bills. I stupidly used Whatman 42, because it was very retentive, which I severely paid for in speed - slow as molasses. The only times I've used any Whatman since was when a client had a bunch of them. I've discovered that technique is much more important than the brand of paper you're using. There are lots of less expensive papers that work well. Even the lousy coffee filters have their place (although it's a small place). I would imagine there are decent Chinese papers. Most companies will send you samples, if you ask. When Whatman acquired S&S, they stopped making my favorite S&S 596 papers, that I had used for many years - cheap, medium retention, medium thickness, fairly fast, pretty good acid resistance. I never did find a replacement that worked the same.

In the last 30 years I was doing this, I weaned myself off of vacuum filtering - not worth the trouble for most things, in my opinion. I usually had several sizes laying around for sludges, mainly. I much prefer gravity filtering, for most things - a big plastic funnel, plywood with a big hole cut in it to hold the funnel, and a bucket. I've probably had as many as 15-20 of these going at one time.
 
goldsilverpro said:
I used high-dollar Whatman papers for about 20 years, when other people were paying the bills. The only times I've used them since was when a client had a bunch of them. I've discovered that technique is much more important than the brand of paper you're using. There are lots of less expensive papers that work well. Even the lousy coffee filters have their place. I would imagine there are decent Chinese papers. Most companies will send you samples of their papers, if you ask..

In the last 30 years I was doing this, I weaned myself off of vacuum filtering - not worth the trouble for most things, in my opinion. I much prefer gravity filtering, for most things - a big plastic funnel, plywood with a big hole cut in it to hold the funnel, and a bucket. I've probably had as many as 15-20 of these going at one time.

I think it sort of depends on where you are at in the value chain.

For someone who is simply doing separations and concentrations, the importance of paying for whatman is a lot different than someone who is doing spectroscopy or buying on assay. In those cases, I can see paying for the whatman to protect the instrument as well as protecting the assay.

For the prior though, where you just need to clean up liquids, poplyrpropylene filter cloth is amazing. I spent something like $200 on 4 yards of a couple different grades (what seems like a lifetime supply at my current useage). I keep it in a 10" buchner that I only use for silver. I then spray the filter out after removing my cake and store it in a five gallon bucket, always keeping it moist.
 
Does anyone ever use those paint straining filters? They seem pretty good for basic stuff, and are made of nylon I think. I used one for cleaning out fiberglass plugs. I just happened to have a couple of them in my shop.
You can get them at any house painting supply store.
 
I think nylon would have a hard time handling nitric acid at least. 30 years ago I tried a fuel filter made of nylon and it ended up like a gooey blob with a lot of gold foils embedded in it.

Göran
 
g_axelsson said:
I think nylon would have a hard time handling nitric acid at least. 30 years ago I tried a fuel filter made of nylon and it ended up like a gooey blob with a lot of gold foils embedded in it.

Göran

Yeah but think of the upside- you had something to spend months and months on putting it right.... :lol: :lol:
 
With what paper do you filter the irium in a platinum solution, which forms very fine particles? this iridium is a very persistent contaminant in platinum, and I think it's because of the size of the iridium
 
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