[Digestion] Use of centrifugal pump for transferring feedstock into digester
Marc de Piolenc
piolenc at archivale.com
Fri Nov 15 20:34:27 CST 2013
There are at least two other possibilities
- cavitation within the pump leading to loss of "prime"; this is heavily
dependent on where the pump is installed, bends and constriction in the
feed line and so on
- formation of gas bubbles in the feed; why wouldn't fermentation start
in the feed, given the right conditions? Those gas bubbles will act just
like water vapor (cavitation) or air intrusion, and make the pump lose
its "prime."
The usual remedy is installing a manual, reciprocating pump in line with
the centrifugal pump. This is used for initially priming the centrifugal
pump and for re-priming it if it gets gas-locked or "sucks dry." Whether
this will work with a relatively thick slurry or not, I don't know.
Marc de Piolenc
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