Filter presses were introduced at the turn of the century and have been around for many years mainly dewatering waste sludges. They were considered labor intensive machines hence they did not find much acceptance in the sophisticated and highly automated process industries. It was not until sometime in the 60's that this image has changed by the introduction of advanced mechanisms that were oriented towards obtaining low moisture cakes that discharge automatically and enable the cloth washing at the end of the filtration cycle.

The Filterpress consists of a head and follower that contain in between a pack of vertical rectangular plates.

Each plate is dressed with filter cloth on both sides and, once pressed together, they form a series of chambers that depend on the number of plates. The entire pack of plates is supported by side or overhead beams.

The head serves as a fixed end to which the feed and filtrate pipes are connected and the follower moves along the beams and presses the plates together during the filtration cycle by a hydraulic or mechanical mechanism. The plates have generally a centered feed port that passes through the entire length of the filterpress so that all the chambers of the plate pack are connected together. Likewise, four corner ports connect all the plates and collect the mother and wash filtrates in a "closed discharge" towards outlets that are located on the same side as the feed inlet. Some filterpresses have plates that are fitted with cocks at their lower side so that the filtrate flows in an "open discharge" to a trough and serve as "tell tales" on the condition of the filter cloth by the clarity of the filtrate that passes through each chamber. The disadvantage of this arrangement is that it cannot be used with filtrates that are toxic, flammable or volatile.