          
Furrow Pump, Inc.
P.O.
Box 1849
8525 SW
St. Helens Dr.
Wilsonville,
OR 97070
Phone:
(800) 937-3666
FAX:
(800) 377-9960
www.furrowpump.com
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Mixmate®
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Application Notes
We built and sold the MixMate for a number of years on a
one-size-fits-all basis, and had a great deal of success. That unit had a 1/4" nozzle
and a 1" two-element mixer, what we would now call a M102-4XX (filling in the
X’s with the number and range of the flowmeters). Eventually, however, we ran into
enough different types of application to begin to experience some difficulties, usually
with the unit plugging at the tip of the injector or in the mixer. The first was with a
customer who turned out to be pumping an emulsion polymer with primary and secondary flows
of 0.25 gpm. As a result, we began prototyping and building MixMates that employed a
smaller nozzle and a smaller static mixer. Those systems performed better than our
one-size unit, so we tried to figure out why. That led to the formulas determining the
component flow velocities and pressure drops, and to comparing systems that worked well
against those that did not. Ultimately, our better understanding of how the MixMate really
worked led to our current expanded product line. |
| Like most people in life, our customers know
a little or a lot about what they’re trying to do. Usually they know they’re
trying to feed a polymer, and sometimes what kind or how much. Frequently, they’re
the third party between a chemical salesman and us, trying to relay enough information to
solve their own water treatment problem. Often our customer is the chemical salesman, who
knows a lot about his polymer, but less about how to get his product into his
customer’s water stream. All of this led to our development of the list of questions
given in the MixMate Selection Section. You’ll seldom get all the answers, but with a
little experience you’ll find that the MixMate is usually forgiving enough to let you
select and sell equipment that will work, even with only a few of the answers. The
following examples fall into the "real life" category, and show that you can
extrapolate solutions for our customers even without all of the information. We are trying
to build our mutual knowledge base about polymers, and specifically polmer feed equipment.
If you have something to teach us, so that we can pass it along, please don’t
hesitate to call us or leave a message at our Feedback key. Thanks |
| VII. Plating WWT — Troubleshooting |
| The customer
mentioned above has a M102-422, is using 1 Lpd of non-ionic emulsion polymer, primary
water is at 0.25 gpm, and secondary water is at 0.25 gpm. Plugging is occurring at the tip
of the injector and at the mixer. What is the solution? |
| Q1: 1 Lpd (0.26 gpd) |
A: Going to
the formulas on page two of the Specifications |
| 2: NA |
Nozzle
FPS* |
= |
(0.25)2 |
= |
0.41 |
| 3:
Non-ionic emulsion |
2.45
X (0.25)2 |
| 4: 1 % |
Mixer
FPS |
= |
(0.25)2 |
= |
0.031 |
| 5: 0.5 % |
2.45 X (0.9)2 |
| 6: NA |
|
| 7: Open
discharge |
*FPS = Feet Per Second |
In
retrospect, we should have put a low flow limit on our one-size unit at 2.0 gpm. The
recommended nozzle velocity is 10 - 40 FPS (here we have 0.41 FPS), and the recommended
mixer velocity is 1–10 FPS (here we have 0.031 FPS). We offered a prototype M032-321
for trial, and got much improved results, without the plugging problem. We now sell the
customer a M022-121, and they’re happy. |
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