text: There are many design criteria which vary according to the type of disc and the required filtering capacity. The typical filter for extracting iron contains 12 ceramic filtering plates of the filtering elements (discs), which have a diameter of about 2705 mm, making the total filter surface 120 m. This filter is most suited to filter feed slurries with high solid concentrations (5-20% w/w) and particles ranging in size from 1–700 µm. The area of the filters available in the ceramic filter is up to 45 m, making them useful for metal and mineral concentrate processing.
  The ceramic discs are available in two types, cast plate and membrane plate. The cast plate is a one piece ceramic plate with a homogeneous surface and a granulated core. The filter medium of the cast plate is the thick walls, separated by ceramic granules. These features form a rigid mechanical structure. The membrane plate type contains a thin membrane over a coarser core and a multi-layer porous structure made of aluminium oxide. The coarse part of the equipment provides mechanical strength to its structure while the intermediate layer acts as a membrane carrier. The outer layer membrane acts as a filtering layer. The filtration layer of the ceramic filter has uniform pores, which means that only a certain size of particles can be filtered by using vacuum ceramic filters.