A slurry is filtered, and the filter cake is washed by use of a plate-and-frame filter press operated at a constant pressure drop of 40 psi throughout the entire run. Experimental tests have been carried out on this equipment, and the results for the slurry mixture used can be expressed as follows for any one pressure drop:
where k' and k" are constants. At a pressure drop of 40 psi, 0.02 lb of filtrate is collected in 1.8 min for each square inch of cloth area, and 0.08 lb of filtrate per square inch of cloth area is collected in 22.2 min. Calculate the time required to filter and wash the cake formed when 0.11 lb of filtrate has been collected per square inch of cloth area if an amount of wash water equal to half the filtrate is used. The specific gravities of the filtrate and wash water are 1.0, and both are at the same temperature. Simple forward washing is used so that the washing rate is equal to the filtrate delivery rate at the end of the filtration.