Filter system for viscous or highly viscous liquids, in particular plastic melts and method for filtering viscous or highly viscous liquids

A filtration system for the continuous filtration of viscous liquids comprising:

• a filter chamber defining an active filter area in a filter zone;
• a groove between an unfiltered chamber and a filtered chamber;
• a filter sieve at least twice as wide as the active filter area;
• a filter sieve support plate, said filter sieve being supported by said support plate and both being slidably disposed in said groove;
• a cleaning chamber arranged on each side of the filter zone;
• a blocking slider on each side of the filter zone;
• and
• a slider element situated on each side of the filter sieve support plate for reciprocatingly moving said filter sieve and said support plate back and forth so that one portion of the filter sieve can be filtering by flowing unfiltered liquid from said unfiltered chamber through said active filter area to said filtered chamber, while the other portion is being back-flushed by passing a portion of filtered liquid back through said filter sieve in a cleaning area.