Slurry is Wearing Out Our Centrifugal Pumps: Are There Better Options?

Dear Sir,

You can use Progressive cavity pump (Screw Pump) which is suitable to handle slurries, and the rubber lining can be made suitable to your acidic requirement. Also, you can use ceramic coated screw to reduce wear and tear and for acid resistance.

For the maintenance purpose, you need to replace only the contact rubber part (sleeve) of the pump which will cost very less compared to replacing the whole pump.

The initial cost of the pump will be high but in long run, you will find it economical.

Will await your confirmation on the result.

My contact details are as under

Hardik Gandhi

Ph: +919377168551, +912652651861

mail: hgandhi_in@yahoo.com

Thanks

Couldn't agree more.

Mono or screw type pumps are ideal for pumping slurries and as pointed out the stator and rotor of the pump can be manufactured from materials to meet your needs.

Might I suggest a screw or auger feed. They can handle a variety of materials and temperatures.

http://www.ktron.com/Products/feeders/screw_design.cfm

Check with Flowserve Pump Co.(use Google). Their Duriron Pump is designed to handle acid slurries. I used their pumps in the '60's to pump sulfuric acid for cooling tower treatment.

You sure do have a problem.

Try www.metsominerals.com

Check out, RAMVAC, an exhaust pump used in dental clinics. Various sizes available. It's adjustable and none of your slurry will touch the pumping mechanism.

bobguz

Try Jabsco pumps

Would not really try a Jabsco.

In marine applications, you only have to see what sand and silt do to them in prolonged shallow water operation.

The seal between the impeller blades and the pump body is no where near as good as the Mono pump, and the pump body can score very badly.

Without sounfding too commercialized you may want to try some of the solutions that Bodycote www.bodycote.com has to offer.

Kolsterising www.kolsterising.com is a surface hardening process to 300 and duplex stainless that can deliver a surface hardness of 68-70 HRc without dimensional change and without loss of corrosion resistance.

K-Tech www.ceramiccoatings.com offers some chemically bonded ceramic coatings that are quite robust.

Lastly you may want to try boronizing the parts.

@ all,

does anybody has an idea what the price is for kolsterising?

Mike

the mono or screw pump is a good option but the best fore wear may be a squeeze

type pump (same as used on concrete pumps) you can buy or make there not hard.

This is a half help half question type of thing on my part. We once used a pump with a thick flexible rubber tube wrapped around the inside of a circular housing with a triangular frame in the middle that was attached to the motor and had a roller in place of each point. The slurry would enter the tube and be pushed around and out by the rotating roller. The tube was sacrificial and replaced as needed takes about 20 Min's to do so once u get the groove so to speak .... problem is is i cant for the life of me remember what the H-E-double hockysticks its called .... thats the question. Anyone seen one before?? If so we used it to pump a leach slurry from tank to tank No sulfuric .. but nitric and hydrochloric were present.

It's a Peristaltic type pump. More common in chemical dosing applications but larger versions as you describe are used for concrete pumping. Would probably be worth investigation for the metallic slurry pumping scenario as the flexible rubber tube can be selected to give chemical resistance with in-built abrasion resistance and the ability to generate the pressures required. The temperature may present a bit of challenge. The other variety suggested was the "squeeze" type pump or hydraulic ram type also used for concrete pumping and other slurries as in de-watered sludge.

In my experience Progressive Cavity pumps are not that great in abrasive slurry applications as scores in the rotor are unforgiving in terms of performance and you may end up not much better off.

thanks ... couldn't remember for the life of me. We gave em the nickname of "surge pumps" due to the nature of it and all. It worked for us but i will say that we were leaching ore for gold and silver and were dealing with a pulverized material in most cases. There was one that was a concentrate and was rather heavy hard to keep suspended. filtered easy though.

Have never tried to pump your product before, but Lawrence Pumps has, in my opinion, the best designed slurry pump that I have come across. They have lined, unlined, canned etc. www.lawrencepumps.com

Warman also make an exceptionally good slurry pump.

http://www.weirminerals.com/

Would a diaphragm type pump work? We used pumps made by Graco to pump grout, very abrasive, worked well.

www.arcmelt.com This has worked for years. Ask Flowserve!

I've used paristalic pumps for flowing diamond slurry. Suprisingly the tube lasts alot longer then you'd think, but you could find tubing for your application relatively inexpensively (at least compared to a new pump every week), and since the tubing will be the most common failure mechanism, its cheap to replace and wont require alot of down time.

Also check with the pump manufactures. I have used ceramic coating on certain pumps that were exposed to grit with some good luck.

I have had much success with diaphragm pumps from ARO, and Wilden. Once the diaphragm and whetted pump material is correct for the chemical being used, the pump has a long life. The only wear parts are 4 balls that act against 4 square cut rings that are made of the same material as the check balls. If they wear out replacement is easily accomplished with only a few screws. I have also used some wear resistant epoxies from Devcon. They have some designed for wear resistance that are ceramic filled. There are also urethane epoxies from Devcon that are designed for wear resistance. Good luck.

I have read the feedback from many responders. My thoughts are that in some applications positive displacement pumps such as peristaltic, mono or diaphragm are not acceptable due to process control requirement. Therefore, centrifugal pump is called upon to do the required duty.

Ceramic Coating or PTFE coating of the wetted parts of the pump is likely to increase the mean time between failures. If you choose to try PTFE, ask for TEFZEL.

Daniel

So much information and so much good well known suppliers. One more will not be harmful. I have had some good experience with this one: http://www.giwindustries.com/products.html I suggest you to prepare a data sheet with all the requirements, including extreme and habitual conditions, and forward it to all the manufacturers mentioned in this list. Best regards, Abel