Innovative pumps solutions provider Verder Pumps South Africa (SA) launched its new peristaltic tube pump, the Verderflex Vantage 5000, at Electra Mining Africa 2016 earlier this month.

Verder marketing manager Elaine van der Westhuizen comments that the Vantage 5000 is a next-generation peristaltic pumps system with touch-screen technology and an intuitive operating system.

She explains that the pump’s menu system is easy to operate, with enough internal memory to save up to 30 dosing and batching programmes. It also enables users to back up job files through its US-based data port.

The pump offers a maximum flow rate of up to 396 ℓ/h, which is double the flow, compared with other leading brands available in South Africa, Van der Westhuizen adds.

She comments that although the focus at Electra Mining Africa was the launch of the Vantage 5000, the Verder Pumps SA team also displayed other popular products, such as from Packo Pumps.

Although the Packo Pumps solution is new to the local brewing industry – the segment for which it was launched – the pump is not new to South Africa, as it has been used for nearly 40 years in the dairy and cheese industry, where it is very well known,” she explains.

Van der Westhuizen adds that the pump will operate similarly in the brewing industry.

“We are not selling a product with the pump; we are selling a solution to improve the overall business process,” she reports.

Van der Westhuizen says the pump assists businesses in achieving higher food safety standards and cost savings in respect of electricity.

She notes that it also assists with the high demands for cleanliness in the food and beverage industry.

“The pump has a well-considered design; electropolishing makes it reliable, with low noise and a high efficiency in typical applications such as wine, beer and juice filtration,” Van der Westhuizen explains.

She adds that it is has an easy-to-clean type of construction that includes a large seal cavity to guarantee turbulence around the mechanical seal, with no bacteria traps or small crevices to clean around the O-ring area.

Van der Westhuizen says the pump boasts a superior surface finish and that most austenitic steel alloys contain iron, 18% chrome and 8% to 10% nickel. She notes that these rich metals are responsible for the chrome oxide skin, which gives stainless steel a high corrosion resistance.

She explains that electropolishing is an anodising process where the treated objects are hung in baths filled with electrolyte and electric current so that the chemicals cause the impurities and iron to dissolve.
She concludes that through electropolishing, the ratio of chrome and nickel on the surface improves, making the stainless steel chemically very inert, owing to the development of a chromium oxide layer on the surface.