A bead mill is used to disperse materials in the pigment production process.
Depending on the liquid, the viscosity is approximately 5000 MPa·s, so a vane pump suited to high-viscosity liquid was used, which posed the following problems.

• The pump parts would wear out, and this debris would mix into the liquid, which affected the quality of the ink.
• Because the liquid is often changed during high-mix low-volume production, a pump that is very easy to clean was required.

We suggested that the customer use a pump with sanitary specifications from our Smoothflow Pump APLS Series.
We loaned the customer a demo machine, which they tested out and found that they could obtain the necessary results in terms of liquid transfer performance, cleanliness, and ease of cleaning. As such, the customer decided to switch to a Smoothflow Pump.

• Smoothflow Pumps use a diaphragm method and have no sliding parts, so the parts hardly wear out at all. This greatly reduced the risk of the entry of foreign matter.
• Even high-viscosity liquids could be transferred with high accuracy and no drop in flow rate.
• There are no mechanical seals and other such shaft seals, and the pump head has sanitary specifications. These factors made the pump much easier to clean.
• The pump is cleaned with a solvent, so the oil cap and other such parts were customized to use materials resistant to solvents, ensuring that the pump can be used with peace of mind.