Barrel pumps are used to extract liquid products from 55-gallon barrels, commonly in chemical, oil, and food industries. They can be manually, electrically, or pneumatically operated and are designed for smaller containers. Metered pumps are also available for dosing systems.
Most often, a 55 gallon (45.8 liter) barrel is used to transport and store liquid products. These barrels can be quite heavy and a bit bulky. To easily extract the product from the barrel, a barrel pump is used.
Generally, a barrel pump consists of a long tube or hose, reaching to the bottom of the barrel, the pump housing at the top, and another tube leading from the pump housing to a separate container. The pump housing includes the pump motor, or crank, as well as the impellers and gears that rotate the impellers. These pumps are reasonably simple and straightforward to use. The pump operator simply opens the small “plug hole” at the top of the barrel and inserts the tube or hose at the bottom of the housing into the barrel. The tube leading from the side or top of the pump housing is placed into the container and the pump is started.
For the most part, barrel pumps are used in the chemical, oil and food industries. Therefore, barrel pumps are normally used to pump volatile or toxic fluids, such as acids, alkalis, combustible solvents and petroleum products. The food processing industry uses a special type of barrel pump called a “sanitary barrel pump”.
The most popular barrel pumps, especially in chemical and petroleum plants, are manually operated. The operator of a hand-cranked barrel pump simply turns a hand crank located on the pump housing to operate the pump. There are, however, some barrel pumps that are electrically operated, as well as pumps that are pneumatically or air operated. An electrically operated barrel pump is very rarely used where volatile chemicals, solvents, oil, petrol, etc. are handled, for obvious reasons. An air-operated barrel pump requires expensive and bulky air hoses, compressors, and other equipment, so they’re also infrequently used.
There are also barrel pumps designed for smaller containers, such as 30-gallon (24.98 liter) barrels and 4.16-gallon (55 liter) pails. Many of these are known as high viscosity barrel pumps, as these smaller containers often hold grease, glue, and other high viscosity liquids. Most chemical, petroleum, and food processing fluids have a lower viscosity, so they weigh less, and a four-gallon barrel is adequate to hold these thinner liquids.
Occasionally, barrel pumps will be modified to fit a dosing system. Metered pumps are also sold as units, but are quite expensive compared to smaller meters that are easily put together and taken apart. These metered pumps keep track of the amount of liquid being pumped.
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