Verderflex Solves Problem of Pumping Abrasive Silicon Waste

The electronics industry uses an absolutely staggering number of microchips. They are made up of semiconductors in a tiny electronic circuit on the surface of a wafer thin material made up of silicon. Microchips form the basis of nearly every current electronic device and as such have transformed our modern world.

ShinEtsu, a company located in Livingston, Scotland are world leaders in the production of silicon wafer for the electronics industry. Unfortunately they have always had to deal with the difficulty of processing the silicon waste after cutting the wafers.

Reliable Pumps

The company had tried many different pumps to remove the waste material but due to the highly  abrasive qualities of the silicon material these pumps often failed, requiring lengthy downtime for maintenance and repairs.

ShinEtsu approached Verder with the brief to provide a reliable pump that would effectively process the abrasive silicon and would be easy to maintain. Verder specified a Verderflex industrial spec hose pump, this was primarily due to the unique way hose pumps work. The waste material only ever comes into contact with the hose component of the pump and so this is the only part that receives any wear, this drastically reduces opportunities for the pump to fail.

Silicon Pump

The silicon pump was left to run continuously to find the upper limits of it's capabilities when pumping such an abrasive material. ShinEtsu were very please when the pump managed to run solidly for 8 weeks before failing. As a guideline Verder suggested a scheduled hose change every 6 weeks to ensure the hose would stay operational. The process of changing the hose was designed to be a quick and simple task to ensure minimum downtime.

When the new Verderflex Dura series of hose pumps were released Verder approached ShinEtsu with this new technology as they believed it would perform even better than the original Verderflex industrial spec hose pump. Once set up and working properly the Verderflex Dura pump managed to increase hose life by 100% further reducing pump downtime.

ShinEtsu were extremely pleased with the results and as a result they purchased the new Dura hose pump to replace the original Verderflex pump.