The Bottom-Line Benefits of Product Recovery

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When transfer pumps are unable to adequately strip suction or discharge production lines, there is a snowballing effect on the costs that are incurred by the facility operator. This list of ancillary costs can include:

more water to clean the lines;

additional cleaning and treatment chemicals to clean the lines;

sanitizing chemicals to sanitize the lines;

energy to facilitate the cleaning process;

labor costs/hours to perform longer cleaning operations;

disposal costs of used water, chemicals and product;

water treatment costs and associated treatment chemicals.

The bottom line? Yes, that’s it — product waste is a severe handicap to the manufacturer’s bottom line and product recovery is a great opportunity to limit that waste and gain cost savings. After all, wasted materials or end-products mean that the manufacturer cannot monetize perfectly good product that is washed out of production lines and disposed of.

For many years, the go-to technologies for hygienic manufacturing processes in the food and beverage, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries have been lobe, external circumferential piston (ECP), centrifugal, hose and progressive cavity-style pumps. While these technologies do perform the basic pumping task, because of their design and operating principles, lobe and ECP pumps, for example, do not possess the ability to adequately strip suction or discharge lines. This is a critical consideration for industries that may use the same pump to transfer different products in a hygienic operation.

Traditional pumps also wear constantly, which increases their internal clearances over time resulting in product slip, thus reducing flow capacity and volumetric efficiency as operating pressures and fluid viscosities vary. Specifically, lobe and ECP pumps have two shafts that have to be sealed, which doubles the number of areas where leaks can occur. Lobe and ECP pumps are also not self-priming and can run dry for only a short period of time unless they have flushed double-mechanical seals. These pumps will also experience diminished performance when handling low-viscosity materials.

Many manufacturers who rely on these types of pump technologies are also often forced to use them in conjunction with so-called “pigging” systems that utilize a projectile to push out the residual product. While well-installed pigging systems deliver the highest recovery rates in product line runs without interruptions (with no heat exchangers, valves, filters, flow meters or other accessories needed), great care must be taken to ensure that purified compressed gas or air is used to push the pig, which can prove a challenge for maintaining product purity.

The Breakthrough

With the amount of money that can be saved via adequate product recovery, eccentric disc pump technology stands ready to set a new standard in product-recovery capabilities in hygienic-manufacturing operations. Eccentric disc pumps are the only hygienic pumps with this capability. The critical key to the eccentric disc pump’s heightened product-recovery capabilities is that it operates via a disc that moves on an eccentric plane within a circular channel, which gives the pump the ability to provide non-pulsing, low-slip operation with high volumetric consistency. Many liken this method of operation to a scroll-compressor effect. This design also means that flow rates vary minimally with changes in viscosity, temperature, system back-pressure and even component wear.

Most important for product-recovery considerations, Mouvex eccentric disc pumps are so efficient that they can pump air when no fluid is present. Please continue reading …

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Eccentric Disc Pumps

The Bottom-Line Benefits of Product Recovery

The Breakthrough