BenZeen - 28-4-2010 at 06:05
Hi everyone
I was reading Advanced practical organic chemistry by Leonard, Lygo and Proctor and when i was reading the chapter about vacuum pumps they said that "
for some tasks very cheap and simple fish tank-type diaphragm pumps are useful. These will produce a vacuum of about 300mmhg and can also be used to
supply compressed air for pressurising chromatography columns".
I was wondering if anyone has used fish tank type diaphragm pumps as a source of vacuum and had any success/ failures with it.
Thanks
not_important - 28-4-2010 at 06:59
I've used a large aquarium diaphragm pump for vacuum filtering some years ago. Fitted a heavy storage can with a feedthrough for the pump exhaust, a
nipple for attaching the vac line, and another feedthrough for the power; then stuck the pump inside. But I've not seen pumps that large for some
time, the only ones I've seen recently are pretty wimpy and I'd say it's doubtful they'd produce useful vacuum, even for filtering purposes.
They were not good enough for distillation use, 200 to 300 mmHg isn't enough to be useful.