A Pump for Your Application

The Penn Valley Double Disc Pump™, the lowest life cycle cost positive displacement pump on the market, finds a home in a variety of applications.

Municipal Applications

Raw or Primary Sludge

The majority of our installations are in the municipal water and wastewater treatment marketplace. One of the toughest applications in wastewater treatment plants can be raw or primary sludge. This is where most of the grit and solids generally accumulate. Our double disc pump has been used for years in this application in both new installations and replacements. The non-close tolerance design and solids handling capability make the pump uniquely suited to handle this material with much less downtime and spare parts/replacements.

Waste Activated and Digested Sludge

Waste activated and digested sludges are some other great applications for the double disc pump. This includes both transfer and dewatering feed applications. While the pump is a reciprocating pump, the short stroke length provides a very small displacement per revolution and therefore a relatively smooth flow that does not affect dewatering operations. Our pumps are routinely used to feed:

Centrifuges
Belt filter presses
Dewatering boxes
Gravity belt thickeners
Rotary drum thickeners
Rotary presses
Screw presses
Sludge bagging systems
Volute presses

Thickened Waste Activated Sludge (TWAS)

Many wastewater treatment plants institute a thickening process to concentrate the solids. This reduces the volume of water which decreases hauling costs for truck loading applications and improves the dewatering process. These thickening processes typically create TWAS (thickened waste activated sludge) via gravity thickening, mechanical thickening (both belt and drum) and DAF (dissolved air flotation). The double disc pump is well suited for the majority of these applications given the ability to effectively handle higher percent solids and higher viscosity fluids.

Scum and Septage

With the pump’s ability to pass larger solids and handle entrained grit and debris, scum and septage applications are other common uses for the pump. For scum applications, the wet-well can be eliminated and the pump is directly installed to the scum collection box on the clarifier. By eliminating the wet-well, there is no floating debris build-up layer that causes odor or requires operator intervention to remove. The pump is operated via a switch and timer control system where-by the entire contents of the scum line are pumped away until empty. The pump’s ability to run dry without damage is a real game changer for this installation.

FOG, Food and High Strength Waste

With the increase in waste-to-energy projects, wastewater treatment plants are upgrading their systems and digesters for bio-gas production. Several of these plants now want to accept waste products high in BOD (biological oxygen demand). We have several pumps installed to handle the FOG (fats, oils and grease), high strength waste/food waste and dairy waste being used to increase digester gas production.

Water Treatment

For water treatment applications, our pumps are routinely installed to pump lime slurry from hydrated and slaked lime systems, lime/alum sludge, WTP residual sludge and polymer transfer.

Industrial Applications

While municipal applications are a higher percentage of our installations, the double disc pump has been used in a variety of industrial applications. A sampling of these applications include:

Chocolate waste material
Coal waste slurry
Dairy waste
Rendering waste
Coffee and tea waste
Chemical sludge
Waste oil sludge
Fiberboard filter
Raw latex
Clay slurries
Chicken process
Landfill leachate
Drilling mud
Food waste slurries
Potato waste
Hog fat