Chamber opening and cake discharge system for a filter press

A combined chamber opening and cake discharge system 10 for a filter press, comprises a carriage 12 suitable for traversing a filter medium closing off a filtering chamber, the carriage abutting 13 an adjacent carriage 12 and suitable for opening the filtering chamber and for discharging filter cake from the filter medium. Preferably a press frame has a moveable pressure plate being moveably positioned towards one end and a fixed plate arranged towards an opposite end. There may be a plurality of vertically oriented filter plates mounted in the press frame and positioned between the moveable pressure plate and the fixed plate; each filter plate forming at least one filtering chamber closed off by a filter medium. An inlet may be provided for feeding suspension into each of the filtering chambers on one side of said filter medium; and an outlet may be connected to each filtering chamber on the opposite side of the filter medium for discharging filtrate. The combined chamber opening and cake discharge system may be used in a filter press for filtering suspensions or slurries and provides simultaneous opening of the filtering chamber, removal and discharge of filter cake.