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A device that transmits part of a received signal and rejects the rest. The signal may be in the form of a beam of light or other radiation or may be an electrical signal. Optical, ultraviolet, and infrared filters are dyed plastic or gelatin, glass or glasslike substances, or confined liquids, all of which absorb incident radiation except for a relatively narrow band of wavelengths. Such filters are used in astronomical photometry, especially in measurements of magnitudes; transmitting bands typically 100 nanometers wide, they are termed broadband filters. Much narrower wavelength bands, of maybe 1 nm, can be obtained with interference and birefringent filters.

Electrical filters are devices whose attenuation varies with frequency. Filters that allow low or high frequencies to pass without serious attenuation are called low-pass and high-pass filters, respectively. A filter that allows only a limited range of frequencies through is a band-pass filter while its converse is a band-stop filter. See also bandwidth.

The term “filter” is also applied to a number of other devices, which are not discussed in the present article. For example, devices that pass or reject acoustic or electromagnetic waves of certain frequencies are called filters, and the term is sometimes applied to devices that separate polymer ions into fractions or remove salts from solutions by means of ion exchangers.

According to the nature of the heterogeneous system, a distinction is made between liquid filters, which are used to LTE filter suspensions, and gas filters, which are used to separate out aerosols and to purify gases. The simplest filter is a vessel that is divided into two parts by a filter medium. A pressure difference is established across the filter to force the liquid or gas through the filter medium, which holds back the solid particles.

Liquid filters. Liquid filters are divided according to their method of operation into two groups: filters that operate intermittently, that is, on a batch basis, and filters that operate continuously. Within each group, filters are classified according to the way the pressure difference is created (application of vacuum or pressure), the geometry of the filtering surface (plane or curvilinear), and the type of filter medium used. In an intermittent filter the entire surface of the filter medium is subjected by turns to the following operations: influx of a slurry and formation of a cake (filtration), dewatering, washing and discharge of the cake, and regeneration of the filter medium. In a continuous filter these operations occur simultaneously and independently of one another in an appropriate filter zone.

The intermittent group includes filter presses and capacity, leaf, and cartridge filters.

Leaf filters are used to clarify solutions and to separate slurries that contain no more than 5 percent (by volume) of a solid phase. The bands filter elements, or leaves, are circular or rectangular in shape and are usually covered with a cloth filter medium. Each leaf has an outlet through which the filtrate is discharged. The slurry is fed into the filter tank. The layer of cake is washed after all the slurry has been removed from the tank.

Filter presses are used chiefly for fine slurries. They include plate-and-frame presses, chamber presses, and automatic filter presses.