Diffusion pump

Last updated June 24, 2024

Diffusion pumps use a high speed jet of vapor to direct gas molecules in the pump throat down into the bottom of the pump and out the exhaust. They were the first type of high vacuum pumps operating in the regime of free molecular flow, where the movement of the gas molecules can be better understood as diffusion than by conventional fluid dynamics. Invented in 1915 by Wolfgang Gaede, he named it a diffusion pump since his design was based on the finding that gas cannot diffuse against the vapor stream, but will be carried with it to the exhaust.^[1] However, the principle of operation might be more precisely described as gas-jet pump, since diffusion also plays a role in other types of high vacuum pumps. In modern textbooks, the diffusion pump is categorized as a momentum transfer pump.

History

In the late 19th century, most vacuums were created using a Sprengel pump, which had the advantage of being very simple to operate, and capable of achieving quite good vacuum given enough time. Compared to later pumps, however, the pumping speed was very slow and the vapor pressure of the liquid mercury limited the ultimate vacuum.

Following his invention of the molecular pump, Wolfgang Gaede invented the diffusion pump in 1915,^[2] and originally used elemental mercury as the working fluid. After its invention, the design was quickly commercialized by Leybold.^[3] It was then improved by Irving Langmuir ^[4] and W. Crawford. Cecil Reginald Burch discovered the possibility of using silicone oil in 1928.^[5]

Oil diffusion pumps

An oil diffusion pump is used to achieve higher vacuum (lower pressure) than is possible by use of positive displacement pumps alone. Although its use has been mainly associated within the high-vacuum range, down to 1×10⁻⁹ mbar (1×10⁻⁷ Pa ), diffusion pumps today can produce pressures approaching 1×10⁻¹⁰ mbar (1×10⁻⁸ Pa) when properly used with modern fluids and accessories. The features that make the diffusion pump attractive for high and ultra-high vacuum use are its high pumping speed for all gases and low cost per unit pumping speed when compared with other types of pump used in the same vacuum range. Diffusion pumps cannot discharge directly into the atmosphere, so a mechanical forepump is typically used to maintain an outlet pressure around 0.1 mbar (10 Pa).

The oil diffusion pump is operated with an oil of low vapor pressure. The high speed jet is generated by boiling the fluid and directing the vapor through a jet assembly. Note that the oil is gaseous when entering the nozzles. Within the nozzles, the flow changes from laminar to supersonic and molecular. Often, several jets are used in series to enhance the pumping action. The outside of the diffusion pump is cooled using either air flow, water lines or a water-filled jacket. As the vapor jet hits the outer cooled shell of the diffusion pump, the working fluid condenses and is recovered and directed back to the boiler. The pumped gases continue flowing to the base of the pump at increased pressure, flowing out through the diffusion pump outlet, where they are compressed to ambient pressure by the secondary mechanical forepump and exhausted.

Unlike turbomolecular pumps and cryopumps, diffusion pumps have no moving parts and as a result are quite durable and reliable. They can function over pressure ranges of 1×10⁻¹⁰ to 1×10⁻² mbar (1×10⁻⁸ to 1 Pa). They are driven only by convection and thus have a very low energy efficiency.

One major disadvantage of diffusion pumps is the tendency to backstream oil into the vacuum chamber. This oil can contaminate surfaces inside the chamber or upon contact with hot filaments or electrical discharges may result in carbonaceous or siliceous deposits. Due to backstreaming, oil diffusion pumps are not suitable for use with highly sensitive analytical equipment or other applications which require an extremely clean vacuum environment, but mercury diffusion pumps may be in the case of ultra high vacuum chambers used for metal deposition. Often cold traps and baffles are used to minimize backstreaming, although this results in some loss of pumping speed.

The oil of a diffusion pump cannot be exposed to the atmosphere when hot. If this occurs, the oil will oxidise and has to be replaced. If a fire occurs, the smoke and residue may contaminate other parts of the system.

Oil types

The least expensive diffusion pump oils are based on hydrocarbons which have been purified by double-distillation. Compared with the other fluids, they have higher vapor pressure, so are usually limited to a pressure of 1×10⁻⁶ Torr (1.3×10⁻⁴ Pa). They are also the most likely to burn or explode if exposed to oxidizers.

The most common silicone oils used in diffusion pumps are trisiloxanes, which contain the chemical group Si-O-Si-O-Si, to which various phenyl groups or methyl groups are attached. These are available as the so called 702 and 703 blends, which were formerly manufactured by Dow Corning. These can be further separated into 704 and 705 oils, which are made up of the isomers of tetraphenyl tetramethyl trisiloxane and pentaphenyl trimethyl trisiloxane respectively.^[6]

For pumping reactive species, usually a polyphenyl ether based oil is used. These oils are the most chemical and heat resistant type of diffusion pump oil.

Steam ejectors

The steam ejector is a popular form of pump for vacuum distillation and freeze-drying. A jet of steam entrains the vapour that must be removed from the vacuum chamber. Steam ejectors can have single or multiple stages, with and without condensers in between the stages. While both steam ejectors and diffusion pumps use jets of vapor to entrain gas, they work on fundamentally different principles - steam ejectors rely on viscous flow and mixing to pump gas, whereas diffusion pumps use molecular diffusion. This has several consequences. In diffusion pumps, the inlet pressure can be much lower than the static pressure of jet, whereas in steam ejectors the two pressures are about the same. Also, diffusion pumps are capable of much higher compression ratios, and cannot discharge directly to atmosphere.

Related Research Articles

A turbomolecular pump is a type of vacuum pump, superficially similar to a turbopump, used to obtain and maintain high vacuum. These pumps work on the principle that gas molecules can be given momentum in a desired direction by repeated collision with a moving solid surface. In a turbomolecular pump, a rapidly spinning fan rotor 'hits' gas molecules from the inlet of the pump towards the exhaust in order to create or maintain a vacuum.

A vacuum pump is a type of pump device that draws gas particles from a sealed volume in order to leave behind a partial vacuum. The first vacuum pump was invented in 1650 by Otto von Guericke, and was preceded by the suction pump, which dates to antiquity.

A vacuum is space devoid of matter. The word is derived from the Latin adjective vacuus meaning "vacant" or "void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressure. Physicists often discuss ideal test results that would occur in a perfect vacuum, which they sometimes simply call "vacuum" or free space, and use the term partial vacuum to refer to an actual imperfect vacuum as one might have in a laboratory or in space. In engineering and applied physics on the other hand, vacuum refers to any space in which the pressure is considerably lower than atmospheric pressure. The Latin term in vacuo is used to describe an object that is surrounded by a vacuum.

A cryopump or a "cryogenic pump" is a vacuum pump that traps gases and vapours by condensing them on a cold surface, but are only effective on some gases. The effectiveness depends on the freezing and boiling points of the gas relative to the cryopump's temperature. They are sometimes used to block particular contaminants, for example in front of a diffusion pump to trap backstreaming oil, or in front of a McLeod gauge to keep out water. In this function, they are called a cryotrap, waterpump or cold trap, even though the physical mechanism is the same as for a cryopump.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venturi effect</span> Reduced pressure caused by a flow restriction in a tube or pipe

The Venturi effect is the reduction in fluid pressure that results when a moving fluid speeds up as it flows through a constricted section of a pipe. The Venturi effect is named after its discoverer, the 18th-century Italian physicist Giovanni Battista Venturi.

In fluid mechanics, two-phase flow is a flow of gas and liquid — a particular example of multiphase flow. Two-phase flow can occur in various forms, such as flows transitioning from pure liquid to vapor as a result of external heating, separated flows, and dispersed two-phase flows where one phase is present in the form of particles, droplets, or bubbles in a continuous carrier phase.

A vacuum ejector, or simply ejector is a type of vacuum pump, which produces vacuum by means of the Venturi effect.

Vacuum distillation or distillation under reduced pressure is a type of distillation performed under reduced pressure, which allows the purification of compounds not readily distilled at ambient pressures or simply to save time or energy. This technique separates compounds based on differences in their boiling points. This technique is used when the boiling point of the desired compound is difficult to achieve or will cause the compound to decompose. Reduced pressures decrease the boiling point of compounds. The reduction in boiling point can be calculated using a temperature-pressure nomograph using the Clausius–Clapeyron relation.

An O-ring, also known as a packing or a toric joint, is a mechanical gasket in the shape of a torus; it is a loop of elastomer with a round cross-section, designed to be seated in a groove and compressed during assembly between two or more parts, forming a seal at the interface.

Ultra-high vacuum is the vacuum regime characterised by pressures lower than about 1×10⁻⁶ pascals. UHV conditions are created by pumping the gas out of a UHV chamber. At these low pressures the mean free path of a gas molecule is greater than approximately 40 km, so the gas is in free molecular flow, and gas molecules will collide with the chamber walls many times before colliding with each other. Almost all molecular interactions therefore take place on various surfaces in the chamber.

An injector is a system of ducting and nozzles used to direct the flow of a high-pressure fluid in such a way that a lower pressure fluid is entrained in the jet and carried through a duct to a region of higher pressure. It is a fluid-dynamic pump with no moving parts except a valve to control inlet flow.

A liquid-ring pump is a rotating positive-displacement gas pump, with liquid under centrifugal force acting as a seal.

Entrainment is the transport of fluid across an interface between two bodies of fluid by a shear-induced turbulent flux. Entrainment is important in turbulent jets, plumes, and gravity currents, and is an ongoing topic of research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rotary vane pump</span> Positive-displacement pump consisting of vanes mounted to a rotor that rotates inside a cavity

A rotary vane pump is a type of positive-displacement pump that consists of vanes mounted to a rotor that rotates inside a cavity. In some cases these vanes can have variable length and/or be tensioned to maintain contact with the walls as the pump rotates.

The sorption pump is a vacuum pump that creates a vacuum by adsorbing molecules on a very porous material like molecular sieve which is cooled by a cryogen, typically liquid nitrogen. The ultimate pressure is about 10⁻² mbar. With special techniques this can be lowered till 10⁻⁷ mbar. The main advantages are the absence of oil or other contaminants, low cost and vibration free operation because there are no moving parts. The main disadvantages are that it cannot operate continuously and cannot effectively pump hydrogen, helium and neon, all gases with lower condensation temperature than liquid nitrogen. The main application is as a roughing pump for a sputter-ion pump in ultra-high vacuum experiments, for example in surface physics.

Vacuum engineering is the field of engineering that deals with the practical use of vacuum in industrial and scientific applications. Vacuum may improve the productivity and performance of processes otherwise carried out at normal air pressure, or may make possible processes that could not be done in the presence of air. Vacuum engineering techniques are widely applied in materials processing such as drying or filtering, chemical processing, application of metal coatings to objects, manufacture of electron devices and incandescent lamps, and in scientific research. Key developments in modern science owe their roots to exploiting vacuum engineering, be it discovering fundamental physics using particle accelerators, the advanced analytical equipment used to study physical properties of materials or the vacuum chambers within which cryogenic systems are placed to execute operations in solid state Qubits for quantum computation. Vacuum engineering also has its deep bearings in manufacturing technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vapor-compression evaporation</span> Evaporation method

Vapor-compression evaporation is the evaporation method by which a blower, compressor or jet ejector is used to compress, and thus, increase the pressure of the vapor produced. Since the pressure increase of the vapor also generates an increase in the condensation temperature, the same vapor can serve as the heating medium for its "mother" liquid or solution being concentrated, from which the vapor was generated to begin with. If no compression was provided, the vapor would be at the same temperature as the boiling liquid/solution, and no heat transfer could take place.

Phenyl ether polymers are a class of polymers that contain a phenoxy or a thiophenoxy group as the repeating group in ether linkages. Commercial phenyl ether polymers belong to two chemical classes: polyphenyl ethers (PPEs) and polyphenylene oxides (PPOs). The phenoxy groups in the former class of polymers do not contain any substituents whereas those in the latter class contain 2 to 4 alkyl groups on the phenyl ring. The structure of an oxygen-containing PPE is provided in Figure 1 and that of a 2, 6-xylenol derived PPO is shown in Figure 2. Either class can have the oxygen atoms attached at various positions around the rings.

Free molecular flow describes the fluid dynamics of gas where the mean free path of the molecules is larger than the size of the chamber or of the object under test. For tubes/objects of the size of several cm, this means pressures well below 10⁻³ mbar. This is also called the regime of high vacuum, or even ultra-high vacuum. This is opposed to viscous flow encountered at higher pressures. The presence of free molecular flow can be calculated, at least in estimation, with the Knudsen number (Kn). If Kn > 10, the system is in free molecular flow, also known as Knudsen flow.

A molecular drag pump is a type of vacuum pump that utilizes the drag of air molecules against a rotating surface. The most common sub-type is the Holweck pump, which contains a rotating cylinder with spiral grooves which direct the gas from the high vacuum side of the pump to the low vacuum side of the pump. The older Gaede pump design is similar, but is much less common due to disadvantages in pumping speed. In general, molecular drag pumps are more efficient for heavy gasses, so the lighter gasses will make up the majority of the residual gasses left after running a molecular drag pump.

References

↑ D. G. Avery and R. Witty (1947). "Diffusion pumps: a critical discussion of existing theories". Proc. Phys. Soc. 59 (6): 1016–1030. Bibcode:1947PPS....59.1016A. doi:10.1088/0959-5309/59/6/313.
↑ Gaede, W. (1915). "Die Diffusion der Gase durch Quecksilberdampf bei niederen Drucken und die Diffusionsluftpumpe". Annalen der Physik . 46 (3): 357. Bibcode:1915AnP...351..357G. doi:10.1002/andp.19153510304.
↑ Sella, Andrea (2009-04-28). "Classic Kit: Gaede's diffusion pump". Chemistry World. Retrieved 2019-08-03.
↑ Langmuir, Irving (1916). "The Condensation Pump: An Improved Form of High Vacuum Pump". General Electric Review. 19: 1060–1071.
↑ C. R. Burch (1928). "Oils, greases and high vacua". Nature . 122 (3080): 729. Bibcode:1928Natur.122..729B. doi: 10.1038/122729c0 . S2CID 4126707.
↑ "Pump Fluids". A User's Guide to Vacuum Technology. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2004-12-07. pp. 229–246. doi:10.1002/0471467162.ch13. ISBN 978-0-471-46716-8.

External links

An oil diffusion pump built from glass by the Arizona State University Main