Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Vacuum pump specs for general lab use

The Ideal Gas Lawyer - 12-6-2014 at 06:04

Forgive me if this topic has been done to death but my boss has tasked me with ordering a vacuum pump for our new lab and I'm kinda lost in specs. I've been looking at this diaphragm pump since we can get it (and a couple other small things) for under $1K which dramatically simplifies the acquisition process but I'm wondering if its good enough that we won't need to buy another, better one in a few months. It has a ultimate vacuum of 75torr and a free air cap of 17 liters/min. I always used house vacuum back in college so I never knew what kind of pull i was getting through the wall. Is that enough of a flow rate for reasonably fast filtration? Is that a low enough pressure to appreciably help distillations?


Thanks!
-TIGL

chemrox - 12-6-2014 at 07:06

Why not say, "my boss has asked me to find him a pump?" There is no English verb "to task." It sounds like something a Fox news reporter might say. Anyway, my rants aside, we don't know what you want it for and whether you have a lab with running water. Give us some parameters and we'll be glad to help you.

The Ideal Gas Lawyer - 12-6-2014 at 10:03

Quote: Originally posted by chemrox  
Why not say, "my boss has asked me to find him a pump?" There is no English verb "to task." It sounds like something a Fox news reporter might say. Anyway, my rants aside, we don't know what you want it for and whether you have a lab with running water. Give us some parameters and we'll be glad to help you.


Because the pump isn't for him, its for the lab and it seemed like the best way to express that :P Anyway, I meant to link to this pump in the OP: http://www.vacuubrand.com/us/page994.html

That's the pump I'm looking at now. I had previously ordered this aspirator http://www.thermoscientific.com/en/product/nalgene-aspirator... but found the performance hugely unsatisfactory with the fairly crappy water pressure available in the lab. Its only been able to pull a vacuum of about 12-18 inches of water. As I said, my needs are faster filtration through a Büchner funnel and possibly vacuum distillation. I don't have specific solvents in mind that I want be able to pull off so I can't work backwards from that vapor pressure. Really I just want to know if it's a reasonable pump for a small research lab.

[Edited on 12-6-2014 by The Ideal Gas Lawyer]

The Ideal Gas Lawyer - 17-6-2014 at 09:49

BTT