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High vacuum pump

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. 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. The diffusion pump is widely used in both industrial and research applications. Most modern diffusion pumps use silicone oil or polyphenyl ethers as the working fluid.

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, and originally used elemental mercury as the working fluid. After its invention, the design was quickly commercialized by Leybold. It was then improved by Irving Langmuir and W. Crawford. Cecil Reginald Burch discovered the possibility of using silicone oil in 1928.

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 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. 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.

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.