Pentair develops innovative clog-free impeller for sewage pumps 

2024 is a special year for Pentair, the Winterswijk-based pump specialist, which is both
standard and custom solutions. Not only is the company celebrating its 120th anniversary, but it is also proud to introduce the Xcentric: an innovative impeller for sewage pumps that prevents clogging. Due to its great success, it was decided to release an entire range equipped with this patented Xcentric Technology.

Raymond Meijnen, Manager of R&D at Pentair talks about this groundbreaking development and what it adds to the wastewater industry. "The development arose from the problems many sewage pumping stations have in terms of blockages," he begins. "With an increasing population, there is more and more use of the wastewater system. In addition, non-soluble fibrous wipes combined with grease and other items entering the sewer system create tangles in sewer systems, resulting in nasty pump blockages. A slowly clogging pump costs a lot of energy. And if the pump gets clogged, it can't pump water and has to be shut down and cleaned." Not only a tedious job, according to Raymond, but especially time-consuming. "We are seeing a huge increase in the number of blockages at pumping stations. It's a big problem as well as a big expense for water boards." Campaigns from various municipalities such as "What is allowed down the toilet? The 3 P's; Poop, Pee and (toilet) Paper', unfortunately do not do enough.

Patented impeller system

So Pentair has been developing a solution to this problem since 2018, focusing on the design of the impeller in the pump. Raymond: "The impeller is the rotating part in the pump that moves water and boosts pressure. It is also the smallest part in the pump. From our expertise and from our service technicians, we know that dirt in sewage gets stuck in the impeller blades. Our R&D department started to look at how the water could be pumped without the vanes causing blockages. That is -literally and figuratively- what this is all about. After all, the correct geometry of the impeller can prevent a lot of trouble and thus also contribute to a saving in energy consumption." Raymond indicates that after R&D, the engineering department got involved and computer simulations were done. "Then we started building and testing the impeller and kept developing until we knew: this is it!" The patent application on the Pentair Xcentric Technology is now at an advanced stage.

No compromise on pumping power and efficiency

"Obviously, a clog-free design for sewer pumps is all about reducing maintenance costs and man-hours. Thereby it was more or less accepted that the pump would then have lower efficiency and consume more energy, as long as the pump does not clog," Raymond explains. "But Pentair definitely did not want to compromise on pump performance and efficiency. Fortunately, the many pilot tests in the field with our prototype confirmed what the calculations from our computer simulations already indicated: our pump actually has a very high efficiency." 

Clog-free range successful

Next it was a matter of testing how clog-free the new impeller would be, so Pentair asked some customers which pumping stations gave the biggest problems in terms of clogging. "Among others, we tested pumps with the new Xcentric impeller in Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Groningen and Rotterdam. In Amsterdam, all booster pumping stations are now running successfully based on this technology, and the pump in Rotterdam has never been out of operation due to clogging since the new impeller was installed in 2019. At a large sewage pumping station in the city of Groningen, our pump with new impeller was connected and we were asked, "Are you still turning it on? While the pump was already running at full speed. The owner experienced many vibrations with the previous pump and, as a test, placed a two-euro coin on its side on the pump. This was still there the next morning." So this innovative problem solver is not only clog-free, but also has a high efficiency and is virtually vibration-free.

Complete range

Due to the great success of this technology, Pentair has decided to build a complete pump range that will be on the market by the end of 2024. "Because we developed the range from a blank sheet of paper, we were able to make optimal use of modularity, making components interchangeable within different pump types. In addition, the pumps are manufactured entirely in our Winterswijk plant, from casting to final product. All this contributes to the high quality we strive for, which ultimately results in a reduction in total life-cycle costs for the customer," Raymond says in conclusion.