What is Ceramic Slurry Pump?
Ceramic pump parts are made of Silicon Nitride Bonded Silicon Carbide. They are designed for wear and erosion resistance in applications such as coal power generation, nonferrous foundry, mining, etc. Components used in many industries, such as tubing systems, slurry pump components, and some other large-size components made of steel and alloys, require protection against wear and tear due to their severe damage in actual processing conditions. Elbows, pipe systems, centrifuges, and many other technical components utilized for moving, separating and extracting various slick and abrasive particles in a slurry suffer from wear and tear. These particles could be acidic and cause damage to the processing equipment.
Benefits of Ceramic Slurry Pump
- Resistant to wet slip and abrasive media
- Strong wear resistance, with overcurrent portions lasting 3.51 times longer than Cr30 wear-resistant alloy.
- Excellent chemical stability, appropriate for PH0-12 acids and bases (except hydrofluoric acid)
- Solvents and excellent oxidation resistance
- Some items resist high-concentration and large-concentration enormous particle impact and can withstand severe grinding conditions.
- Low and easy maintenance
- Simple and robust mechanism
- Pumps and their components are lined with abrasion-resistant materials
Working Principle of Ceramic Slurry Pump
The liquid must be poured into the ceramic pump cavity. When the prime mover turns the shaft and the impeller, the fluid flows in a circular motion with the impeller on the one hand and throws out from the center of the impeller to the perimeter due to centrifugal force on the other. The impeller provides pressure and velocity energy to the liquid. Most movement energy is turned into a stationary compressor when the fluid passes through the volute to the discharge port.
When the fluid is ejected from the impeller, the core part provides a low-pressure area, which causes a pressure differential with the pressure of the suction liquid surface, allowing the liquid to be sucked in and discharged at a constant pressure.
Application of Ceramic Slurry Pump
Ceramic slurry pumps transport liquids containing suspended solid particles in metallurgy, mining, coal, electricity, building materials, and other industries, such as concentrate, tailings, ash, cinder, cement, slurry, and so on.
Grain cleanliness requirements in slurry: meet -0.074mm â 45% and + 1mm â 3% simultaneously.
The slurry’s maximum temperature should not exceed 90 â„, and the weight concentration should not exceed 70%.
- Mining industry
- Ceramic industry
- Oil and gas need to handle large volumes of slurry in the process.
- Fertilizer manufacturing
- Land reclamation
The very long service life of flow components: the impeller, front pump body, and rear pump body made of ceramic composite material have good wear resistance and impact resistance, and cavitation resistance. The service life of flow components is 5-10 times that of high chromium alloy impeller.
Increased life cycle efficiency:
- After prolonged use, honeycomb holes emerge on the surface of the metal overflow parts owing to cavitation, and the efficiency declines dramatically.
- The ceramic composite in the existing parts will not develop honeycomb holes during their service life, and the efficiency drop will be minimal.
More types of methods:
- Generally, packing + auxiliary impeller seal is selected.
- A double-face mechanical seal should be selected when medium dilution is not allowed.
- When the medium is allowed to melt, and there is a certain pressure at the inlet, such as thickener underflow and multi-stage series connection, a single-face mechanical seal + auxiliary impeller seal should be selected.
Features of Ceramic Slurry Pump
Ceramic slurry pumps are horizontal, single-stage slurry pumps. They have bracket constructions, single-pressure radial impellers, and abrasive shells that may be replaced. The pump takes in axially and expels tangentially. The discharge direction can be rotated 45° in the circumferential direction depending on the conditions of use.
Ceramic materials make the sheath, front liner plate, rear liner plate, and expeller ring. The impeller can be formed of metal or ceramic materials and has a long service life and strong wear resistance.
The most important feature of a ceramic slurry pump is that it is both wear and corrosion-resistant, and its performance is significantly superior to that of an alloy or rubber pump.
Through many tests and data feedback in metal concentrating plants over many years, the service life of a ceramic slurry pump is generally 3-6 times that of a High Chromium Alloy pump under the same working condition, and the price of silicon carbide material is lower than that of high chromium steel, duplex steel, and so on, so the ceramic slurry pump has a significant economic advantage in raw material prices when compared to the first-class alloy.
Corrosion Resistance
In contrast to metal pumps, ceramic pump wet end components (impeller, throat bush, frame plate liner insert, volute) are primarily made of silicon carbide inorganic, nonmetallic materials with excellent acid and alkali resistance and oxidation resistance.
Wear Resistance
While transferring the media containing solid particles, the wet end portions of the slurry pump will experience equivalent wear. Silicon Carbide has a crystalline structure similar to Diamond Tetrahedron. It is mostly a covalently linked molecule.
Shaft seal
A packing seal or a combined shaft seal with an expeller and mechanical seal is used in a slurry pump. The expeller’s function is to lower the pressure at the mechanical seal. The combination of the expeller and the mechanical seal prevents the shaft seal from leaking for an extended period. Mechanical seals are classified into three types: single mechanical seals, double mechanical seals, and cartridge mechanical seals.
Single mechanical seal
The single mechanical seal is mainly employed where cooling water can be pumped into the pump body. A cooling water inlet is built within the expeller ring. Cooling water travels via the expeller ring and expeller into the pump body cavity and is discharged together with the delivered slurry. The mechanical seal has a long service life, and the expeller, expeller ring, and rear liner plate wear very little.
Double mechanical seal
The double-end mechanical seal is mainly employed in applications where cooling water is not permitted in the pump body. The expeller ring incorporates the cooling water intake, outlet, and emptying port. Suppose there is a clean cooling water source nearby. In that case, the cooling water can be directly linked to the expeller ring, entering from the inlet and exiting from the outlet, giving the best benefit to the circulating cooling mechanical seal.
Cartridge mechanical seal
Cartridge mechanical seals are mostly employed in applications where cooling water cannot be fed into the pump body. The seal is distinguished by its ease of installation and long service life.
Heat resistance
Because the material is not easily distorted or corroded when heated, the ceramic slurry pump is immersed in liquid at the highest temperature of 120 °C for seven days. Silicon Carbide ceramics may completely satisfy general working conditions below 60 °C.
Bearing
On the positioning side, slurry pumps use face-to-face angular contact ball bearings or double-row tapered roller bearings, which primarily carry axial force. The spacer ring oil injection structure in the center of the face-to-face angular contact ball bearing is favorable to oil injection and bearing lubrication. On the free side, a cylindrical roller bearing with a strengthened inner ring and no ribs are used to carry the radial load. The bearing structure is more rational, and the bearing’s service life is increased.
Installation of Ceramic Slurry Pump
Slurry Pump for Ceramic Materials Most slurry pumps is made of High chrome iron Cr27% or rubber lined. To better fulfill market demand and transportation requirements under varying working conditions. The technical team began with the ceramic slurry pump.
The overflow portions’ ceramic wear-resistant parts are sintered at high temperatures. They have good mechanical qualities and high wear resistance after being compounded with polymer components.
Case 1
With a lift of about 70m and a maximum concentration of about 60%, nonferrous copper mine tailings are conveyed underground to fill the following concentration. The original 100 / 150e-hh slurry pump is employed, and the overflow parts have an average service life of 20-25 days. The 150ZGB slurry pump has a service life of 20-25 days.
Case 2
Sulfur concentration was transported by PT mining using 80-485ZGB (with a specific gravity of 1.6, a vertical height difference of 19.8m, and a pipe length of 2750m). It was initially connected in series with two pumps, each with a motor power of 132 * 2 = 264kw, with a service life of 15-30 days. It was later replaced with a ceramic slurry pump, which could be moved with just one pump. The motor power is just 132kw, and the overflow parts have a service life of more than six months. This pump position alone will save approximately $500,000 each year.
Case 3
The original OK tail pump in the second tungsten firm employs a 150-ZJ-50 alloy slurry pump, and the overflow parts have a service life of around 3-4 months. This ceramic slurry pump was built, and no maintenance has been performed since then.
If you have any questions about pumping slurry or require a pump sized for your slurry application, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
