Improve the pulser pump!
(or any air lift pump)
The pulser pump is a general purpose pump for pumping water or air short distances. It isn't very efficient but (Hopefully!) it makes up for it in other ways. Here is a way of dramatically improving the performance for pumping water and (perhaps) of reducing the depth needed to do pumping. This would probably work best with a split process pump.
The improvement may be achieved simply by using balls of sponge like material (of a diameter suitable to fit the pipe) and circulating them in the system. They act like pistons and reduce the fallback. In this way, the efficiency is improved.
This has the potential to double the efficiency of the pump as it pumps water!
I have done some experiments but I haven't the time to complete them so it is over to you waterpower hands-on scientist types! GOOD LUCK
Some Guidelines.
1 The sponge should be light and when it soaks water, it should sink.
2 I think that it should be made of relatively hard material.
3 You may need some spacing or timing mechanism to keep the balls the required distance apart.
4 Use hard clear pipes so you can see what is going on inside. Perhaps Plexiglas or perxpex.
5 Perhaps you can power your experiment with a small air pump. (Only the air lift part of a pulser
pump is being changed).
6 Perhaps (if you are using a pulser pump to power your experiment), you can have the air inlet to
the air lift section about 70% or 80% of the maximum that it could be. You might not understand
why until you try it out!
So there they are, I hope some of you try the thing and make it better!
7 The pump should also work without the sponge balls.
The animated picture lacks detail (only one sponge ball is shown), scale, fall-back etc. but it should give you an idea what I mean. Air to power the process comes in through the
black pipe on the left. Improved image! 6th September
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