Goofy Ideas for building a Filtration System

[Anonymous]

That quote was getting too long.

Are you saying the first one you worked with was mush or the one you put in water was mush?

Filter looked good inside the wire mesh cage, then fell apart in my hands after I removed it - mush. They were stored outdoors.

I really thought I was onto a winner here for cheap filter paper.

Best Regards
Gill

 

[Harold_V]

That quote was getting too long.

Are you saying the first one you worked with was mush or the one you put in water was mush?

Doesn't really matter, the sequence. Such filters are not intended to be used wet, so they won't hold up to any kind of abuse.

I suggest anyone seeking to do any kind of power filtering (aside from using Buchner funnels, with vacuum) seek a supplier of filter materials that are used in filter presses. They are made to be used under pressure, and are resistant to water. They come in a myriad of configurations and material types. That was the source of the cloth I used in my anode basket for my silver cell, as well as the filter media I used in my filter press. Silver cell material was cotton, while the filter press material was made of polypropylene. Very rugged stuff, and reusable over and over.

Harold

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you Harold, I found a supplier of filter membranes in Kent Washington and I'll be on the blower to them in the morning.

http://www.sterlitech.com/

 

[Barren Realms 007]

That quote was getting too long.

Are you saying the first one you worked with was mush or the one you put in water was mush?

Doesn't really matter, the sequence. Such filters are not intended to be used wet, so they won't hold up to any kind of abuse.

I suggest anyone seeking to do any kind of power filtering (aside from using Buchner funnels, with vacuum) seek a supplier of filter materials that are used in filter presses. They are made to be used under pressure, and are resistant to water. They come in a myriad of configurations and material types. That was the source of the cloth I used in my anode basket for my silver cell, as well as the filter media I used in my filter press. Silver cell material was cotton, while the filter press material was made of polypropylene. Very rugged stuff, and reusable over and over.

Harold

The filter press we used was the same desighn and material construction as yours and the filter clothes were virtualy indistuctable. And when one did go bad it was quick to change out the cloths were held on by tie strings on the outside of the plates. There were gaskets and orings on the plates but there was so much pressure applied that there was little leaking.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

That quote was getting too long.

Are you saying the first one you worked with was mush or the one you put in water was mush?

Filter looked good inside the wire mesh cage, then fell apart in my hands after I removed it - mush. They were stored outdoors.

I really thought I was onto a winner here for cheap filter paper.

Best Regards
Gill

And I was thinking you had found something and I would be wrong. Sorry to hear that.

 

[Anonymous]

Spoke with the filter people this morning, what I need to know now is which micron size membrane should I be be using, the idea is to use a spinning drum such as a spin dryer would extract water from a wet wash - clothing.

The media being extracted is pregnant AR from milled cats, the milled cats are still reasonably coarse but does contain some finer particles showing as fine dust. It would stand to reason to remove as much garbage as possible before going onto the net stage.

A suggestion on Micron size from those of you that have used these membranes would be appreciated..

Best Regards
Gill

 

[lazersteve]

I use polypropylene cloth in my silver cell anode basket and also in my sulfuric cell at times. It's really great stuff, you can boil it in AR and it doesn't phase it.

I like the way you can form various shapes with it and weld it using a little heat.

Steve

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Spoke with the filter people this morning, what I need to know now is which micron size membrane should I be be using, the idea is to use a spinning drum such as a spin dryer would extract water from a wet wash - clothing.

The media being extracted is pregnant AR from milled cats, the milled cats are still reasonably coarse but does contain some finer particles showing as fine dust. It would stand to reason to remove as much garbage as possible before going onto the net stage.

A suggestion on Micron size from those of you that have used these membranes would be appreciated..

Best Regards
Gill

IMHO unless you have some pressure inside the drum to help push the fluid out once the filter starts trapping the dirt and stopping up it will stop filtering and the fluid will just stay in the drum.

I have used vacume drum's to filter solution's and this might be a better route in the use of a drum.

As far as the screen size of the filter I have forgotten what we used I seem to remember a 200 mesh.

The nice thing about a filter press is even if the mesh is too big once it starts catching material the flitering gets better in that it traps more particals and filters finer material. The press we used had 4' square plates if I remember right they would catch a lot of material before they had to be cleaned.

The vacume drum never did do as good of a job. The main reason for this is because it is better to do things like this under pressure rather than a vacume. You are limited to how much of a vacume you can put on something because it is harder to create a vacume than it is to produce pressure. With pressure you are only limited to what your piping and pump will withstand.

 

[Anonymous]

Barren Realms 007 your not taking into account the g-forces generated by the drum spinning at 3250 RPM. Trust me something is going to come through that filter cloth.

Cheers
Gill

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Barren Realms 007 your not taking into account the g-forces generated by the drum spinning at 3250 RPM. Trust me something is going to come through that filter cloth.

Cheers
Gill

If you can get the drum to turn 3250 RPM you are damn right some thing is going to come thru the filter. Just maybe not what you want to. 8)

I really am behind you in this don't think I am trying to shoot it down.

 

[Anonymous]

Barren Realms 007 your not taking into account the g-forces generated by the drum spinning at 3250 RPM. Trust me something is going to come through that filter cloth.

Cheers
Gill

If you can get the drum to turn 3250 RPM you are damn right some thing is going to come thru the filter. Just maybe not what you want to. 8)

I really am behind you in this don't think I am trying to shoot it down.

Perforated drum is only 12" in diameter using a direct drive motor that has a brake on it, didn't plan it that way just happened along. Never crossed my mind any hint of discouragement on this project.

I think there could be other forum members watching how this project turns out. It would not be the first time i invested time and money into a project that did not pan out as I had anticipated. If a fellow just sits on the throne and daydreams about there projects nothing ever gets proven one way or other.

ttys
G

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Barren Realms 007 your not taking into account the g-forces generated by the drum spinning at 3250 RPM. Trust me something is going to come through that filter cloth.

Cheers
Gill

If you can get the drum to turn 3250 RPM you are damn right some thing is going to come thru the filter. Just maybe not what you want to. 8)

I really am behind you in this don't think I am trying to shoot it down.

Perforated drum is only 12" in diameter using a direct drive motor that has a brake on it, didn't plan it that way just happened along. Never crossed my mind any hint of discouragement on this project.

I think there could be other forum members watching how this project turns out. It would not be the first time i invested time and money into a project that did not pan out as I had anticipated. If a fellow just sits on the throne and daydreams about there projects nothing ever gets proven one way or other.

ttys
G

Excellent, I agree with you 100%.

What is the HP rating on the motor?

Did this motor come with a break or is it something you built into the system?

You keep getting these 3250 RPM motors. What are you doing, getting a bunch of pool pump motors and using them. :lol:

 

[qst42know]

At 3250 rpm both fluid and solid will try to climb out of your drum. What kind of lid do you have planned?

Do you have a speed control to slowly raise the RPM?

 

[goldsilverpro]

Gill,

Talk about goofy ways to filter, here's one I played with that really worked well. It you're looking for simple, you can't beat this. All it takes is 3 buckets and a strip of cloth. It's (B) in my first post on this thread. It is very simple and worked well for very difficult-to-filter stuff, such as metal hydroxides and stripped x-ray film emulsion sludge. It doesn't really filter the material - it siphons the liquid out of the solids. If you can't figure it out by my explanation, let me know. The heavy polyester cloth I bought from Walmart to do this even stood up to AR.
http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=3393&p=28720&hilit=polyester+cloth+strip+filter#p28720

Chris

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Gill,

Talk about goofy ways to filter, here's one I played with that really worked well. It you're looking for simple, you can't beat this. All it takes is 3 buckets and a strip of cloth. It's (B) in my first post on this thread. It is very simple and worked well for very difficult-to-filter stuff, such as metal hydroxides and stripped x-ray film emulsion sludge. It doesn't really filter the material - it siphons the liquid out of the solids. If you can't figure it out by my explanation, let me know. The heavy polyester cloth I bought from Walmart to do this even stood up to AR.
http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=3393&p=28720&hilit=polyester+cloth+strip+filter#p28720

Chris

I thought the cappilary action was well known.

Are you sure that the color you described in that post on the link was not from coloring in the cloth?

I didn't think that the cappilary action was supposed to transfer solids to the 3rd bucket, and that that is why it is used but it is a very slow process as you stated, depending a lot on the viscosity of the solution you are transfering. Grass grows faster.

 

[Anonymous]

Gill,

Talk about goofy ways to filter, here's one I played with that really worked well. It you're looking for simple, you can't beat this. All it takes is 3 buckets and a strip of cloth. It's (B) in my first post on this thread. It is very simple and worked well for very difficult-to-filter stuff, such as metal hydroxides and stripped x-ray film emulsion sludge. It doesn't really filter the material - it siphons the liquid out of the solids. If you can't figure it out by my explanation, let me know. The heavy polyester cloth I bought from Walmart to do this even stood up to AR.
http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=3393&p=28720&hilit=polyester+cloth+strip+filter#p28720

Chris

My old man used to hang a wick over the side of our fuel drum to keep the water off, it would work for what I'm doing, but it would be deathly slow.

I want something a bit quicker that will be more exact in extracting the values with maybe once rinse.

ttys
Gill

 

[goldsilverpro]

Gill,

Talk about goofy ways to filter, here's one I played with that really worked well. It you're looking for simple, you can't beat this. All it takes is 3 buckets and a strip of cloth. It's (B) in my first post on this thread. It is very simple and worked well for very difficult-to-filter stuff, such as metal hydroxides and stripped x-ray film emulsion sludge. It doesn't really filter the material - it siphons the liquid out of the solids. If you can't figure it out by my explanation, let me know. The heavy polyester cloth I bought from Walmart to do this even stood up to AR.
http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=3393&p=28720&hilit=polyester+cloth+strip+filter#p28720

Chris

I thought the cappilary action was well known.

Are you sure that the color you described in that post on the link was not from coloring in the cloth?

I didn't think that the cappilary action was supposed to transfer solids to the 3rd bucket, and that that is why it is used but it is a very slow process as you stated, depending a lot on the viscosity of the solution you are transfering. Grass grows faster.

Capillary action is well known but I've never heard of it being used as a filter. The capillary action tends to raise the solution in the cloth to the top. The siphoning force tends to draw it over the top and maintain the flow. It's a combination of these 2 forces, I think. Whatever it is., it most certainly worked.

Just try this. You might be pleasantly surprised. If you have the levels right, it will remove the liquid from sludge fairly quickly.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

Gill,

Talk about goofy ways to filter, here's one I played with that really worked well. It you're looking for simple, you can't beat this. All it takes is 3 buckets and a strip of cloth. It's (B) in my first post on this thread. It is very simple and worked well for very difficult-to-filter stuff, such as metal hydroxides and stripped x-ray film emulsion sludge. It doesn't really filter the material - it siphons the liquid out of the solids. If you can't figure it out by my explanation, let me know. The heavy polyester cloth I bought from Walmart to do this even stood up to AR.
http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=3393&p=28720&hilit=polyester+cloth+strip+filter#p28720

Chris

I thought the cappilary action was well known.

Are you sure that the color you described in that post on the link was not from coloring in the cloth?

I didn't think that the cappilary action was supposed to transfer solids to the 3rd bucket, and that that is why it is used but it is a very slow process as you stated, depending a lot on the viscosity of the solution you are transfering. Grass grows faster.

Capillary action is well known but I've never heard of it being used as a filter. Just try this. You might be pleasantly surprised. If you have the levels right, it will remove the liquid from sludge fairly quickly.

I have use the application on other things just not in this field. I was under the assumption that solids would not be readily transfered. I have never used it and paid attention to what solids would do because it has always been to transfer clean fluid not to filter solids from solution. Under the right circumstance it can work real quick.

Hmm..I have 2 things I can try this on possibly:
1. Some gold I droped from solution with copper plate that would not drop with SMB.
2. Sulfuric cell.

I might try this and report back.

 

[goldsilverpro]

I have use the application on other things just not in this field. I was under the assumption that solids would not be readily transfered.

Can you tell me what applications you have tried this on and how you did it?

The solids won't transfer. Only the liquid will. It separates liquids from solids. I tried it mainly on sludges or thick slurries, like metal hydroxides, and it worked great. Like I said, I also tried it on the gel-like sludge from stripping the silver/emulsion off of x-ray film, which is the most difficult thing I have ever filtered and can literally take days with a standard filter. It was nearly dry the next morning. It basically siphons the liquid away from the solids through the cells of the fabric. There is no actual filtering involved. The solution passes along the cloth rather than through it.

In the setup I suggested, the capillary action is needed to get the solution up through the cloth to the top edge of the bucket. Then, the siphoning takes over and draws the liquid over the side and into the catch bucket. Very simple. When I did it, with the bucket at an angle, I wiggled it until the sludge was almost to the lip of the bucket.

 

[Barren Realms 007]

The solids won't transfer. Only the liquid will.

I'm glad you bought the subject up then. I haven't even considered it in this field. Thanks