Sealess Pump for Ammonia Transfer from Kelair Pumps Australia

Case Study
Sales Engineer Frank Molinaro (VIC)

Corken's SC pump channels solution to ammonia transfer

Kelair was approached by a customer to supply a pump that would handle an anhydrous ammonia transfer application. The customer's requirements were that the pump must be seal-less.

The previous pump in service had a mechanical seal. When this leaked, the ammonia escaped to atmosphere and this posed an unacceptable risk to working personnel.

Liquid ammonia is volatile liquid. Small subtle changes in temperature and pressure can cause some part of the liquid to flash off into vapour.

The duty that the pump must achieve is a small flow/high pressure application.

The suction conditions are very low on NPSHA. The suction system set up is a saturated boiling liquid scenario where NSPHA is simply calculated by static level minus friction loss (see diagram 1).

Diagram 1

The problem was also compounded by the fact the storage tank where the liquid ammonia was being transferred from was a 20 tonnes vessel. This vessel could not readily be elevated.

The solution for this application was the Corken SC series side channel pump (see diagram 2).

The pump was offered in a seal-less (magdrive) design which addressed the issue of potential leakage.

The Corken SC pump has a proprietary centrifugal impeller design near the pump inlet. The pump also incorporates one to eight stages of open radial vane impellers.

These design features give the pump its ability to handle low NSPH, handle liquids with up to 50% gas content and generate pressures of up to 350 metres. This design is well proven as the pump has been successfully used in handling volatile liquids such as LPG and ammonia.