TABLE OF CONTENTS Practically every process operation requires the separation of entrained material or two immiscible phases in a process. This may be either as a step in the purification of one stream, or a principal process operation [1]. These separations may be as follows:
liquid particles from vapor or gas
liquid particles from immiscible liquid
dust or solid particles from vapor or gas
solid particles from liquid
solid particles from other solids.
These operations may sometimes be better known as mist entrainment, decantation, dust collection, filtration, centrifugation, sedimentation, screening, classification, scrubbing, and so on. They often involve handling relatively large quantities of one phase in order to collect or separate the other. Therefore the size of the equipment may become very large. For the sake of space and cost it is important that the equipment be specified and rated to operate as efficiently as possible [2]. This subject will be limited here to the removal or separation of liquid or solid particles from a vapor or gas carrier stream (points 1 and 3 above) or separation of solid particles from a liquid (point 4). Svarosky's review is helpful [3].
Other important separation techniques such as pressure-leaf filtration, centrifugation, rotary drum filtration, and others all require technology very specific to the equipment and cannot be generalized in many instances.
The particle sizes of liquid and solid dispersoids will vary markedly depending upon the source and nature of the operation generating the particular particles. For design of equipment to reduce...
