Mono targets hygienic pumps sector
13 Jun 2007
With 29 models, the Helios range can handle flow rates up to 180m3/h and pressures up to 24 bar. The pumps are being targeted at end-users and OEMs in sectors including confectionary, dairy, beer, wine, fruit & vegetable, meat/fish/poultry and oil & fats.
Mono is pitching Helios as an alternative to lobe pumps. The company claims its product offers better seal and wear characteristics due to a special interference fit between the rotor and soft resilient stator and gentler handling of shear sensitive products at high flow rates.
Mono is a 670-employee, global organisation with sales of $150 million and a pump-industry heritage dating back over 70 years. Since 2003, the company has been part of the $7bn-turnover National Oilwell Varco group of Houston, Texas.
As well as PC pumps, Mono makes macerators, screens, and packaged pump systems, and operates a significant aftermarket and spare parts service. Around 60% of total sales are via the company’s industrial business with the remainder going through a unit dedicated to the oil industry.
The industrial unit supplies pumps to a range of process sectors including chemicals and pulp & paper. However its main focus has been in the water/wastewater and marine markets, which represent 40-50% of sales.
Mono has also supplied its PC pumps to the food sector in the past, but Helios is its “first full-on attempt to give the food industry what it needs,” marketing manager Nichola Vasconchellos said at a 12 June press launch in London.
With regard to Mono’s targets for the hygienic market for the next five years, Simon Lambert, the company’s European manager, said reaching around 10% of total industrial business sales “would be doing well.”
Asked about certification, Lambert said: “People are telling us that this is not so important. We are not being dismissive of that but at this point the pump does not have 3A certification. In the past, he added, Mono had gone all out to secure 3A certification for pumps but found that it wasn’t such a key requirement in the market.
According to Ian Davies, Mono’s export sales manager, Helios is being launched globally; reflecting how the food industry has similar needs worldwide. The range, he added, represents “a new direction for Mono … This is just the beginning, other products will be coming along.”
The new range has already been launched in Europe, — in Spain this April. The pumps, said Davies, are being supplied through distributors, who “have been screaming for a product like this,” not least because it is 30-40% cheaper than existing alternatives. In the UK, Helios pumps will be sold through Mono’s established sales force, he added.
Early applications for Helios pumps have been for fruit juices and concentrates and dairy products — traditional areas for Mono. The company has gained new business in the chocolate handling sector with a version fitted with a heating jacket. Further afield, Davies said his Mono colleagues in Australia expect the pumps to sell well in the wine industry.
Helios pumps feature a double-helix resilient rubber —usually nitrile — stator and single-helix metallic rotor. The design meets a range of food industry requirements including hygienic design and construction, CIP; and the ability to handle viscous products and maintain consistency and integrity of shear sensitive products during processing, said Davies.
The pumps are also designed for minimal reduction in flow even with varying viscosity fluids such as CIP fluids. Other claimed features include inherently self-priming, little slippage with low viscosity fluids and low service costs due to employment of single shaft and seal.
According to a Mono statment, the compact Helios design features a one-piece suction chamber that is easily cleaned and has no areas where product could collect. The pump, it added, can also be dismantled without removing the drive, which makes inspection and maintenance much easier and reduces the risk of damage to the mechanical seal.
