[foxthreefour]

Hi, I have a fair amount of Copper Hydroxide and Iron Hydroxide sludge to filter from aqueous solutions across multiple reactions. What would be the maximum micron size I could use to filter it effectively as it blocks up filters like nothing else.

Thanks.

[Arkcon]

It depends on your reaction, but these are likely very fine precipitates.  Just about any filter: filter paper, glass wool, whatever is going to clog sooner or later.

If you have access to a centrifuge, you can make the best pellet possible, and decant.

I have to assume, you have some water-soluble synthesized organic in the aqueous phase, and you can't spare even a drop of loss?  Because that just comes with the territory of these sorts of precipitates, you have to accept some loss.  There are other things you can do, if you think about what you really need.

[rolnor]

Celite?

[foxthreefour]

It depends on your reaction, but these are likely very fine precipitates.  Just about any filter: filter paper, glass wool, whatever is going to clog sooner or later.

If you have access to a centrifuge, you can make the best pellet possible, and decant.

I have to assume, you have some water-soluble synthesized organic in the aqueous phase, and you can't spare even a drop of loss?  Because that just comes with the territory of these sorts of precipitates, you have to accept some loss.  There are other things you can do, if you think about what you really need.

Thank you.

A drop of loss won't be the end of the world, but it seems decanting is going to be the best way. Was just wondering if there was something extremely simple I was overlooking.

[Babcock_Hall]

Is centrifugation is out of the question?

[foxthreefour]

Is centrifugation is out of the question?

No, but to scale up in future it may be.

[Arkcon]

For molecular biology purposes, large capacity centrifuges are well-used in university laboratories.  So that's something you can look into if you need more capacity for a short time.  For industrial purposes, tangential flow filtration is also a well-known process, and you can even find them for very small laboratory scales.