In order to make the equipment selection you will have to respond to some questions about your process and the material to be filtered or separated. One of the most important questions is: how easy are the solids to filter? Two separate methods are provided for this: the first method uses simple settling velocity to try and provide some idea of how easy to filter the material will be. You may be able to perform a simple sedimentation to determine this and use the result here. Alternatively, if you know the particle size use the Settling Calculations link at the bottom of the page to calculate the settling velocity.
The other alternative provided requires more detailed information about the filter cake. This could come from a laboratory filter test, be deduced from an existing process or be looked up from a table. For industry filtration of solid-liquid filtration, people often use like mesh filter, cartridge filter or filter bags.