Mechanical/thermal dewatering - A perspective for an efficient solid/liquid separation

Mechanical/thermal dewatering [1] is a new process for the energy efficient separation of solids and liquids developed at the Department of Energy Pro cess Engineering and Fluid Mechanics at the University of Dortmund. In addi tion to moist capillary porous bulk materials, suspensions containing ultra fine particles, which are usually extremely difficult to filter, can be eco nomically dewatered using this process. With low energy requirements, high area specific throughputs and simple plant engineering, the process present s an interesting alternative to other processes for solid/ liquid separatio n. After successfully completing tests on the processing and plant engineer ing for the mechanical/thermal dewatering of brown coal in laboratory and p ilot plant settings, examples for the dewatering of other moist materials a re presented.