A REVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW FILTER TECHNOLOGIES BASED ON THE PRINCIPLE OF MULTI STAGE FILTRATION WITH GRAIN REFINER ADDED IN THE INTERMEDIATE STAGE

摘要

Recent developments in filtration technology based on theprinciple of using a three stage process where a ceramic foamfilter is operated in cake mode in the first stage; grain refiner isadded in a second chamber and a further filtration means is usedin the third stage to remove oxide inclusions or agglomeratesoriginating from the grain refiner addition are reviewed. The firstdevelopment – the XC Filter, was presented by Instone et al in2005 and described a system where a small deep bed filter (DBF)was successfully applied in the third chamber.A second prototype multi stage filter was described at TMS 2008based on the same principle but with a cyclone deployed in thefinal chamber. An industrial prototype was constructed based onwater modeling work and plant trials were undertaken.The current stage of development of each system and their relativemerits are evaluated.