Think You Need a Sanitary Progressive Cavity Pump to Meter Non-Viscous Liquids? Think Again.

April 14, 2014

When metering thin fluids, sanitary metering pump selection often forces the user to make compromises.  Sanitary centrifugal pumps are not designed for metering.  Sanitary PD pumps are not accurate with water like fluids because of slip.  That leaves the user with a choice of other PD pumping technologies, most of which are not ideal.  The reality is that most sanitary metering pumps are derivatives of industrial metering pumps that have been adapted to hygienic applications.  They may work great for waste water applications, but create challenges in sanitary metering applications.  Double diaphragm and piston pumps all have pulsation issues.  Progressive cavity pumps, while non-pulsing, are expensive to buy and maintain.  The food grade stator materials don’t wear like their industrial brethren and are expensive.  Plus they take up a lot of room.

The Quattroflow Family of  Pumps

The Quattroflow Family of Pumps.  These are Excellent for Low Viscosity Metering Applications

Most of the sanitary metering technologies we have described above are at least 50 years old.  As we have been developing our line of sanitary metering systems we have begun incorporating a newer pumping technology that we are very excited about, the Quattroflow Pump.   The Quattroflow pump is a quaternary, four diaphragm pump.  It was developed for the biotech industry several years ago to gently pump shear sensitive biological fluids against high differential pressures and has proven to be very successful in that arena.  But the Quattroflow pump has properties that make it an excellent sanitary metering pump in applications beyond biologics.

  • The pump has no seals
  • Low Pulsation
  • Highly accurate and repeatable
  • Great turndown ratios give the pumps great flexibility
  • Scale- Models available to product flow rates from a fraction of a liter to over 300 lpm
  • Low maintenance

So if you are looking for a sanitary metering pump and don’t want the pulsation of traditional double diaphragm pumps or the maintenance and capital cost of a sanitary progressive cavity pump, take a look at the Quatttroflow.  It would probably be good for you to take a look at new technology every 40 or 50 years.  We offer these pump as a standalone sanitary metering pump or incorporate it into a turnkey sanitary metering system designed to your specifications (including panel mount versions of the QF150).  That is what we do here.  If you want to explore this topic further or have a sanitary metering application you would like to discuss, contact one of our sales engineers.  We are here to help.