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Air-lifts to reduce water usage in plating shops
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- From the 20 ways to cut water usage:
- - SOLUTION NUMBER 10 -- INSTALL AIR LIFTS . . .
- Suppose you would like to employ counterflow rinsing but have no elevation difference between the overflow dams. Or suppose you would like to re-use the overflow from plating rinses in earlier, less critical rinses.
- A simple air-lift can be fabricated from plastic pipe, and will handle this chore without pumps, level controls, or other expensive complications. See Plating and Surface Finishing, May '82.
- Suppose you would like to employ counterflow rinsing but have no elevation difference between the overflow dams. Or suppose you would like to re-use the overflow from plating rinses in earlier, less critical rinses.
Anyone can tell me the air-lift introduced in the above solution since I do not have the Plating & Surface Finishing, May 82
Deville YiuSun Lick - Hong Kong, China
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Can't find my copy of P&SF May '82 either. But here's the principle of the thing --
A smaller pipe is glued into the U-bend between the two rinses, and air is injected into this smaller pipe. It aerates the water on one side of the U-bend, making that water lighter. Then gravity and hydrostatic balance take over. It's pretty much the same idea that draws water through an aquarium filter.
Good luck.
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 Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey |
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The May 82 article is by Clarence Pegger of Hard Chrome Consultants in Cleveland, OH. Pipe size is a little more critical than you would think. His used a tiny tiny piston powered fish tank air pump that he got out of a flea market. It may take a while to get it just right, but the darn thing works.
James Watts- Navarre, Florida