What A Positive Displacement Sanitary Pump Is

By Marci Nielsen


You may be going into the food manufacturing business soon and thus you will need to know some of the needed equipment needed in such a business. And in your proposed venture you may have come across the term positive displacement sanitary pump. Read on in this article to find out what kind of equipment this is and how it works and is essential for your food production needs.

A pump is a machine or an implement that is installed to assist in the movement of slurries, food products and solutions that are in some form of needed processing. This is done in accordance with set criteria and standards of health and cleanliness which is set either by the company itself or an outside regulatory agency. In the United States, these regulatory agencies are the United States Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.

Pumps in the food manufacturing arena consist of two types. The first being the centrifugal type, which uses centrifugal force to push fluids and liquids. The second type is the positive displacement type, which uses rotating lobes to create suction and move fluids and such through fixed chambers. Both are designed to eliminate bacterial growth while working.

Positive displacement pumps are sometimes called PD pumps and are fast gaining in popularity when talking about special applications involving thick liquids or liquids with fragile solid materials. Although they cannot produce a high flow rate like centrifugal pumps, they can produce much greater pressure.

As these kinds of mechanisms rely on rotating parts or lobes to create pressure based on volume, it produces less velocity when liquids are ejected into a discharge system. This is thus much more useful and needed when dealing with liquids that have some form of inert fragile solids within them.

As such there are two types of PD pumps. One is the rotary type which uses rotating parts only to move liquids. This is most useful for liquids that have some solids in them. The other type of PD pump is the reciprocating pump, which also makes use of vacuum pressure for applications that require the elimination of reverse flow. Reverse flow is of major concern especially when filtration and such are required.

The main advantage of using a PD type over a centrifuge type is that it can provide a constant flow, even if the liquid is thick. Thus this is useful in breweries and dairy production facilities. Firms involved in the manufacturing of oils in the food market also benefit from the use of PD pumps. Other firms which produce molasses have also started to use these equipment in their overall production and processing lines.

Hopefully this short article has been of some use in enlightening the reader as regards PD pumps and their use in the food industry. It is by no means an exhaustive treatise on a somewhat technical subject but hopefully it has put some of the technical jargon into simple terms as much as possible to elicit understanding.




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