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The Drip Tray or leachate collection hatch or bun cover again, is the device that is commonly offered as an option but which in reality should never be missing in a high-performance filter press.
Its function is to convey the liquid that normally and physiologically leaks during the filtration phase between one plate and another (unless gasket plates are used – but that’s another matter).
This liquid is collected in one or two side trays from which the installer or filter press user then connects to convey it usually to the top of the filtration system.
Constructively it is made up of one or two (depending on the size of the machine) tilting doors moved by linear actuators to allow the door to remain closed during the filtration phase and to open instead during the cake unloading phase.
This device – which is often offered as an option – shouldn’t be such, but it should always be mounted in a self-respecting filter press.
The reason is very simple, in fact we try to avoid nullifying the efficiency of the press.
Let me explain better: if we have not mounted the Drip Tray, it means that all the dripping that occurs during the filtration phase falls into the exhausted cake collection box where the cakes unloaded in the first phase notoriously fell.
So basically, with the filter press I try, with all possible tricks, to obtain the greatest degree of dryness and the greatest dehydration and then, since I have not mounted the Drip Tray, I am going to partially nullify the action obtained in the previous phase.
This is because I allow the dripping during the filtration phase (sometimes it can be significant) to fall directly on the previously unloaded dry cakes.
In other words: I try to get as much dehydration as possible and then in the next phase I do nothing to prevent the liquid from wetting what I pressed in the previous phase: in this way I lose effectiveness and money.
That’s why the Drip Tray should always be present, also because it’s one of this optional that can’t be installed later.
In most cases it is necessary to disassemble the machine on site and it is not certain that all the necessary equipment is present (overhead crane, etc…).
So ultimately, the machine must be born with the Drip Tray and it is not possible to install it afterwards.
Example of an old filter press in which the Drip-Tray is not present.
Note the conspicuous dripping that falls directly into the pressed sludge and nullifies the dewatering action.