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Filtration is the removal of suspended particles from a fluid, performed by a filter medium, septum, cloth or bed of solids. Filtration is commonly encountered in chemistry laboratories on a Buchner funnel and within the kitchen during the making of filter coffee. It is a very important industrial process as it is often a key stage in product recovery: following reaction, precipitation and crystallisation stages, but preceding thermal drying and packaging (e.g. in pharmaceutical production). It is more economic to remove moisture from particles by mechanical means, including filtration, than by thermal means. Thus, domestic washing machines provide higher and higher spin speeds prior to thermal, or evaporative, drying.

There is a vast range of filtration types; depending upon whether the objective is to produce a clean liquid, as in drinking water production, or solids retained in a filter cake, as in product recovery. The former process is called clarification, or clarifying filtration and is often performed in equipment containing packed beds.

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