Several industrial processes, whether it be the refining of petroleum products, manufacture of pharmaceuticals or the treatment of wastewater, may require the use of dangerous or hazardous chemicals.
Such hazardous chemicals include strong acids and caustics, like hydrogen chloride (HCl), hydrogen fluoride (HF), nitric acid (HNO3), sulfuric acid (H2SO4), potassium hydroxide (KOH) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH). There are also dangerous solvents,
like toluene, a colorless, water-insoluble liquid that can cause a series of severe reactions in the body when exposed to humans, and xylene, a slightly greasy, colorless flammable liquid with some level of acute toxicity.
In contrast to being dangerous, these substances are also invaluable in the manufacture of thousands of consumer products and the production of components that are used to create consumer goods or facilitate industrial processes.
The challenge for manufacturers and users of these dangerous chemicals is to construct, handle, and transfer them in a way that eliminates any chance for their release into the atmosphere where they can harm humans or the environment.
This whitepaper illustrates how one type of pumping technology—positive displacement (PD) solid-body plastic air-operated double-diaphragm (AODD) pumps—possesses the design and construction features that are necessary to guarantee full containment of dangerous chemicals, while also offering working characteristics that enable the highest level of operational efficiency to be achieved.