The separation of the ferrous impurities from industrial liquids using electromagnetic filtration and optimization of process parameters

This thesis work comprises the investigation of the magnetic properties of packed beds, the effect of surfactant and various process variables on the electromagnetic filtration efficiency and a thorough comprehensive optimization of this filtration efficiency. Magnetic behaviour of different packed beds magnetized under various applied external magnetic field strength was determined.Effects of process variables on the electromagnetic filtration efficiency were investigated. These variables are the magnetic field strength, size of the filter matrix elements, filter length, filtration rate, viscosity of the suspension, the pH value of the suspension and the number of the cycles applied. It was found that filtration efficiency decreased on increasing the filtration rate, size of the filter matrix elements and viscosity of the suspension. Efficiency, on the other hand increased with the filter length, external magnetic field strength and naturally with the number of the cycles. pH displayed a fluctuating effect on the filtration efficiency. Futhermore electromagnetic filtration efficiency was found nearly twice as large as non-magnetic filtration efficiency.Addition of detergent into these suspensions assisted in obtaining higher filtration efficiencies, especially in high viscosity suspensions.Aiming at the determination of optimum process parameters for maximum electromagnetic filtration efficiency, three different optimization techniques were used. The predicting the cleaning efficiency of the electromagnetic filtration process is mathematically modelled. Genetic algorithm and simulated annealing techniques were employed adopting the mathematical model and an experimental optimization was performed using Nelder-Mead simplex method. It was found that the optimum levels of the variables and the maximum quality factor obtained by three different optimization methods agreed well.