Liquid Filter Design
June 2, 2026, Tuesday
8:00 AM – 10:00 AM ET, USA
$USD 350
$USD 175 (Member Only )
Course Objective
The biggest challenge of liquid filtration is in its vast variety and applications of equipment used. Liquid filters, although all use for liquid filtration, their designs, operations and applications can be very different. This course follows the “Liquid Filtration” course and provides a more detailed understanding of major types of equipment used in liquid filtration with the focus on industrial applications. Practical information and examples based on the instructor’s extensive field experiences are used to help the audience understand these liquid filters.
The contents are designed for people who are new to the filtration industry either in technical, sales or business functions. It is also a very good refreshing course for those who have been involved in filtration for a while, especially in relating fundamental principles to practical operations.
After the course, participants will have the basic knowledge and practical insights to select, design, and evaluate filtration processes across various industries, including water treatment, food & beverage, pharmaceuticals, energy, electronics and more.
Course Outline
1. Brief Review of Key Information in Liquid Filtration
2. Introduction to Liquid Filter Design
3. Straining Filter Design
- Screens
- Strainers (Manual and Automatic)
- Bag Filters
- Cartridge Filters
- Filter Ratings
3. Cake Filter Design
- Gravity Filters (nutsche, belt, …)
- Vacuum Filters (nutsche, leaf, flat bed, drum, disc, belt,…)
- Pressure Filters (nutsche, leaf, candle, filter press, flat bed, tower, drum, disc,….)
- Compression Filters (diaphragm press, tubular press, belt press, screw press, …..)
- Centrifugal Filters (basket, peeler, pusher, worm screen, screen bowl,….)
4. Depth Filter Design
- Granular (gravity, pressure, moving bed,…)
- Cartridge (string wound, meltblown, metal powder, metal fiber,…)
5. Membrane Filter Design
- Membrane, module, system
- Membrane Filter Configuration (flat sheet, cassette, spiral, hollow fiber, tubular, cartridge,…
- Membrane Filter Design Considerations
6. New Developments, Opportunities, and Trends
- Advances in membrane technologies
- Advances in liquid filters
Instructor Biography
Dr. Wu Chen
Instructor
Dr. Wu Chen is a recently retired R&D Fellow at Dow. He has 35 years of industrial experience in all areas of solid/liquid separation and air/gas filtration. His experiences include laboratory filtration evaluation, pilot study, full scale installation, startup, production scale operation and trouble shooting. He also has expertise in carbon capture, water management, project management, process design, and plant startup. He has been teaching this course in numerous organizations and countries for 30 years. He is very active in the filtration industry and has been the plenary and keynote speakers in major conferences, served as the chair of the American Filtration and Separation Society (AFS), AFS board of directors, conference chairs, and various committee members. His was awarded AFS Frank Tiller Award for outstanding technical achievements, AFS Well Shoemaker Award for leadership and service to the filtration industry and Fellow Member Award for sustained significant contributions to filtration technologies and filtration industry. In 2024, he received the AFS Lifetime Achievement award which recognized his significant lifetime contribution to the filtration industry.
Dr.-Ing. Thomas Peters
Panelist
Dr.-Ing. Thomas Peters is an internationally renowned expert in membrane technology and environmental engineering. He has over 40 years of experience in the field of pressure-driven membrane processes for the treatment of water, process fluids, and wastewater. Related pioneering work was focused between others on the use of reverse osmosis for desalination of seawater, for the purification of landfill leachate and water reuse in different areas. He earned his Ph.D. in 1980 at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg on the subject "Production of drinking water from seawater with reverse osmosis“. After leading management functions in a middle-sized and multinational company, he has been a high-level independent technology consultant since 1986, authored more than 100 publications and more than 50 oral presentations. He is co-editor of a landfill compendium. He received the Stanley Gray Award - Marine Technology 2000/2001 of the IMarEST, London, and the ATCP Award 2007, Concepción, Chile.
Dr. Swarna Agarwal
Panelist
Dr. Swarna Agarwal is a Senior Material Scientist at PTI Technologies, responsible for developing liquid, air, and fuel cell filters for the aviation industry. Previously, she was the Engineering Manager for filtration media R&D at Parker Hannifin, where she developed over 50 new products and advanced R&D capabilities for diesel fuel, hydraulic, and H2 fuel-cell filters. She has also worked as a filtration scientist at UCLA, Water Planet Inc., and ITV Denkendorf, Germany. With over 18 years of experience in product development, nonwovens manufacturing, and nanotechnology, she is an expert in coalescence through porous media, emulsion separation, and bio-inspired textiles. Dr. Agarwal has received several awards, including the AFS Senior Scientist Award (2018) and the Parker Inventor Appreciation Award (2021). She holds a PhD from the University of Stuttgart, Germany, and has over 30 publications, one book, and three patents.
Penalists
Mr. Scott Yaeger, President/CEO of FAST, USA
Mr. Yaeger has over 40 years of experience in Membrane Filtration with leading companies such as Sartorius, Cuno/3M, Gelman/Pall, and PTI Advanced Filtration/Parker Hannifin. He has held senior roles in Sales, Marketing, Engineering, R&D, Manufacturing, and General Management. Since 2004, as President of FAST Consulting, LLC, he has developed new membranes, technologies, and applications for leading filtration companies.
Scott was the Founding Chairman and a past Board Member and Program Chair of the American Filtration and Separation Society (AFS). He is currently on the Board of Directors of the Electrocoat Association (EA). He has received the Wells Shoemaker Award from AFS and the Brewer Award from EA. Scott holds 4 US patents, has presented over 400 technical papers to more than 10 technical societies, and serves on the Editorial Board for Filtration News.
Dr. Farzad Rezaei, Lead Scientist at Hollingsworth & Vose, USA
Dr. Rezaei leads the development of advanced membrane materials for liquid filtration at Hollingsworth & Vose, including the company’s Trupor® platform. With over a decade of experience in polymer chemistry, nanofiber engineering, and surface modification, he has driven key innovations in membrane performance, hydrophilic coatings, and plasma-treated media across biopharmaceutical, food and beverage, and industrial markets. He holds a Ph.D. in Fiber and Polymer Science with a minor in Materials Science and Engineering from North Carolina State University. Dr. Rezaei’s work has been recognized through patents, peer-reviewed publications, and awards for research excellence.
Dr.-ing Nicolas PETILLON (CTO, IFTS, France)
Dr. ing Nicolas PETILLON is the CTO of IFTS (Institut de la Filtration et des Techniques Séparatives) in France. He has over 25 years of experience in liquid filtration testing and over 10 years of experience in cleanliness expertise. He serves as Convenor and expert at ISO committee, such as ISO TC 70/SC7; ISO TC 22/SC34; ISO TC 131/SC6. He worked as as an assistant professor at the University of CAEN and a research engineer at SOGEFI FILTRATION in the past. He gratuated from Chemical engineering, ENSIC – Université de Lorraine (1991) and received his Ph.D. in 1996, Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine, France.
Dr. Christine Sun, President of the World Filtration Institute, USA
Dr. Sun is a globally renowned technical and market expert in the filtration and nonwovens industry. With over 30 years of experience in academia and industry, she has in-depth knowledge of filtration and extensive hands-on expertise in product and business development, with over 100 technical publications and patents in the field. She is also actively involved in the development of many air and liquid filter test standards, such as ASHRAE and ISO. Dr. Sun worked for Freudenberg Filtration Technologies from 2004 to 2011 as an R&D manager and then served as Technology Director for Donaldson Company from 2011 to 2013. She was the Chair of the American Filtration and Separation Society (AFS) from 2016 to 2017 and has received the AFS Fellow Award in 2019, the Sr. Scientist Award in 2012, and the best paper awards from INDA (Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry) in 2008. She is also an editorial board member for the Journal of Industrial Textiles. Dr. Sun received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, and her Executive Certificate from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, USA.