Ambient-Temperature Fusible Filter: A Preliminary Experiment and a Proposal for a Filtration Process

To the best of our knowledge, there has been no report on the use of a fusible filter material (FF) for filtration apparatuses apart from our previous proposal (WIPO2010087055). We have been studying the use of ice crystals as an FF. In that study, squid oil contained in the visceral organ was separated from the oil emulsion. Here we briefly report the possibility of using an ambient-temperature fusible filter medium (ATFF) as a FF. An important characteristic with ATFF is that the melting or solidification process can be carried out within an ambient temperature range, resulting in a simpler and lower (in terms of running and capital) cost FF apparatus. A preliminary experiment was performed using trimethylolethane hydrate (TME-3H₂O) as an ATFF. The sieved TME-3H₂O crystals formed the filter-bed. Rapeseed oil/water/surfactant-protein emulsion was artificially made as an alternative biomaterial, and centrifugal filtration was performed for 5 min at 400 G. 86% of oil (transparent) was recovered from the oil-contained ATFF by melting (heating) TME-3H₂O at a temperature greater than the solidification point of 30 degree Celsius for the filter medium followed by gravity separation. For biomaterials, both ATFF and FF may solve a problem, integration of protein-coated oil emulsion droplets, which is accompanied with widely used method (sedimentation centrifuge). The reason seems that ATFF or FF  has a coalesce function as deduced from the transparent state of the harvested oil. Recycle of both ATFF and FF may also solve an environmental problem that are associated with diatomaceous earth disposal.