6 Examples How Product Recovery Can Mean Profit Recovery

Eccentric disc pumps can reduce waste and create notable product-recovery savings in hygienic food and beverage, pharmaceutical and cosmetic manufacturing applications

- Johann Fourrat-Besson

Product waste in hygienic manufacturing industries such as food and beverage, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics has long been accepted as an unavoidable “cost of doing business.” The problem with this mindset is that simply flushing or draining away raw ingredients or intermediate/ finished products that remain in suction and discharge piping at the conclusion of production runs or during product changeovers is the same as watching money go down the drain.

The key, therefore, to turning product “waste” into product “recovery” – and, by extension, “profit” recovery – in these situations is identifying and deploying the most efficient and reliable pumping technology, one that can be trusted to strip suction and discharge lines of still useable raw materials and saleable end products. While such technologies as lobe, external circumferential piston (ECP), twin screw, centrifugal, hose and progressive cavity-style pumps have routinely been used in hygienic manufacturing, their operational capabilities have been found wanting when it comes to optimizing product recovery.

A better, more reliable and more efficient choice is the Eccentric Disc Pump. The pump’s unique operating principle – a disc revolves on an eccentric plane within a circular channel – gives it the ability to function in a non-pulsing, lowslip manner with high volumetric consistency. Eccentric disc pumps are also able to pump air, which creates a vacuum effect on the suction side and a compressor effect on the discharge side, resulting in the ability to push a complete product “plug” out of the piping without the need for expensive pigging systems or other line-clearing solutions.