One of the world’s largest pump manufacturers turned to Bethlehem Apparatus for a solution concerning mercury. Large pumps containing mercury seals posed both a disposal and a refurbishing problem. Due to the high cost of replacement pumps they wanted a way to refurbish existing pumps without the environmental problems and liability of dealing with mercury.

Bethlehem Apparatus designed a proprietary system for safely retorting both the pump stators and the rotors to remove the mercury and then returning them for remanufacturing.

Removing the mercury from the pump stators presented a interesting challenge as the copper windings are encased in plastic. A unique feature of this furnace is that it is designed to run at very low vacuum. This allows us to cook the stator at below 400 degrees, the temperature at which the plastic begins to melt. Thus we are able remove all the mercury by cooking at low temperature and low pressure so that our customer can reuse a very expensive part in a re-built pump.