What Goes Into a Peristaltic Pump

A peristaltic pump is a wonderful thing. Applications for these tools range from performing large volume transfers of heavy, viscous fluids in chemical manufacturing to precisely measuring out shear sensitive liquids during medical procedures such as blood transfusions. Even something as familiar as measuring out the sweet syrup of a soft drink into a stream of soda water is best performed by this type of pump. But what makes them what they are, and how do you choose the right one for the right job based on product specifications?

Main Body

You could refer to the whole apparatus of pumping motor and control unit, pump head, and tube as a peristaltic pump, but the main unit that supplies power and allows settings to be changed is also sometimes referred to as such. This part's maximum revolutions per minute will largely determine the maximum speed of the pump system. Often, a pump body will be designed to work with a single type of head or a range of heads.

Pump Head

The peristaltic pump head is the most recognizable part of these pumps. You may have caught a look at one of them on television during a medical drama, or perhaps while watching a documentary about manufacturing processes. They are also sometimes made out of clear polycarbonate in soft drink machines so the parts are visible.

The way the heads work is based on a system of rollers that apply pressure to a tube. The rollers in these heads rotate around a center point. The organization and quantity of these rollers determines the speed and flow pulse amplitude of the pumped liquid. A tube filled with liquid is placed around the rotating rollers, which squeeze the liquid through the tube and out the other end. This means that none of the liquid touches any of the pump head parts, only the inside of the tube.

Pump Tubing

The best choice of tubing is sometimes determined by the manufacturer, and certain pump heads and bodies have limits in terms of the size of tubes they will accommodate. Larger tubes mean a faster flow rate, along with the type of head and the max RPM of the pump.

Since the tube is the only part of the pump that the liquid touches, the material it's made out of makes a big difference. Most of the highest quality tubing is resistant to many extremes, and will handle appropriate liquids without swelling or cracking. Some tubes for special applications can even be autoclaved for sterilization.

In contrast to this, the pump head material only needs to maximize the life of the tube and provide adequate compression for accurate pumping. The materials of the pump body have no contact with the tube or the liquid, so they only need to be durable enough to survive the external environment.

Choosing the Best Pump

The best peristaltic pump is going to have enough power to handle the speeds you'll need to dispense your liquid. It will also have precise controls so it will be accurate enough to pump only what you need. You will also need to choose a pump that can use tubing with a chemical and physical compatibility appropriate to your needs.

If that sounds like a lot to consider, keep in mind that you don't have to know everything about the parts of a pump to get the right one. You just have to know enough to ask the right questions to the right people. For more details: PreFluid Technology Co.,Ltd

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