A new, rapidly growing, biopharmaceutical company located in Horsham, PA was using an “off-brand” peristaltic pump for their new purification process. The high pressure needs of their filtration system required the use of Sta-Pure tubing. The plant was very discouraged at the lack of pressure that the off-brand pump produced so they switched to a different positive displacement pump manufactured by the same pump company.
Recently the plant was developing a new purification process. The group was using a filtration cassette system, and had specified a pump and tubing. The lab wanted to avoid a rotary lobe pump if at all possible because they were trying to reduce the hold up volume to a minimum. This group had been told that the tubing was capable of developing up to and exceeding 3 bar. When the group first fired up the small skid they were very discouraged; the pump could not push against anything greater than 2 bar. The lab then brought in another pump. This pump solved one problem by generating the required backpressure but created a new one. The new problem was the amplitudes (+/-2 bar) of the pulsation using this pump was destroying the filtration cartridge.
While the second pump solved the lack of pressure it created a new problem with the pulsation amplitudes. The new pump’s pulsation was destroying the filtration cartridges. The customer was beyond frustrated and went back to look a solution.
After discussing the high pressure requirements and the pulsation issues with the customer, Watson-Marlow determined that the 520Du/L pump was the correct pump for the job. The Watson-Marlow low pulse pumphead used in conjunction with a pulse damper, reduced the pulsation amplitudes to +/- 5psi, a far cry from the +/- 2 bar the off-brand pump was producing. The low pulse, high accuracy 520Du/L pump more than satisfied the customer’s needs.