Progress and challenges predicting filtration and separation

Prediction of filtration and separation is in greater demand than ever. New legislation, new materials, globalization and short development cycles require detailed understanding of the underlying processes. Computer Simulations are a new and efficient way to gain such knowledge. But modeling and simulation efforts face serious difficulties in their quest to complement experiment, observation and theory because filtration is a phenomenon determined by multiple scales. Fortunately, powerful computers, sophisticated models and new experimental equipment are available. Desktop computers with lots of memory and several fast CPUs, three-dimensional filter media models combined with REM and CT images are some of the exciting developments that allow work today that was unthinkable in the past. The talk will present examples how filter media models, filter process models, CFD and statistics can provide valuable insights into filtration from both the practical and the academic po int of view.