A new type of oil-free pump for use with high-performance centrifugal evaporators is based on the scroll principle
Genevac has announced the introduction of a new type of oil-free pump for use with its high-performance centrifugal evaporators. The new pump has been developed by BOC Edwards, with assistance from Genevac, and is based on the 'scroll' principle. The scroll pump takes its name from the design of the pump head, where a series of crescent shaped scrolls cut into an oscillating rotor are used to repeatedly compress and decompress the gas or vapour to be pumped.
The main advantage to the scroll pump is that they are dry, and therefore do not require any pumping fluid or lubricant in order to operate.
This in turn makes them ideal for use in harsh chemistry environments such as high throughput chemistry and drug discovery, where corrosive or volatile solvents are frequently used.
Ordinary pump designs are totally unsuitable in these labs, and so Genevac designed its Cole principle vacuum pump for just this type of work.
While the Cole principle pumps have been a great success, with over 1000 in use worldwide, they do require occasional topping up of the inert fluid in the pumping chamber, something no longer required with the scroll pump design.
Scroll technology is not new; it has been in use in the microprocessor industry for several years, but this is the first time it has been successfully applied to a wider range of solvents in the drug discovery arena.
Special materials must be used in the construction of pumps for such applications before going in to use on Genevac evaporators.
The pump is available in two sizes according to required flow rate; either 180l/min or 90l/min; both will reach down to 0.1mbar with ease. The larger unit is specified for Genevac's new HT-24 high throughput solvent evaporator for the large scale purification and synthesis sector, while the smaller unit is suitable for Genevac's bench top evaporator models from DD-4 up to HT-12. While scroll pumps represent a significant technological breakthrough, they cannot, as yet, handle large quantities of acidic chlorides such as thionyl chloride and hydrochloric acid. In applications where these agents predominate, Genevac still recommends its CPC100 Cole pump.
This pump is capable of almost indefinite running in the presence of large quantities of acid chlorides, thanks to its unique design and the use of specially-formulated inert pumping fluid.
