About this tool & our methodology

Knowledge base v0.6.0 · Last updated: September 30, 2026

What ChemPumpSelect is

ChemPumpSelect is a free pre-selection tool for chemical duty pumps. You enter your fluid, concentration, temperature and duty point; a deterministic rule engine screens wetted materials against a compatibility knowledge base and walks a decision tree to a pump type — producing an RFQ-ready specification sheet you can send to any manufacturer.

It answers the first half of pump selection: pump type + wetted material class + a specification suppliers can quote against. It deliberately does not do model-level selection (no pump curves) — that second half belongs to the manufacturer's engineering team.

How it works — and why there is no AI inside

Every recommendation is produced by a deterministic, versioned rule engine running on our own server (not in your browser, and not by an AI model). This is a deliberate design choice for three reasons:

• Reproducibility — the same inputs always produce the same answer, and we can show you exactly why (the "Engineering rationale" section of every report).
• No hallucinations — a wrong material recommendation in corrosive service can mean leaks, fires and injuries. Rules don't improvise.
• Honest limits — when your duty falls outside what our data supports, the tool says so and offers to forward your inquiry to the manufacturers who engineer for that duty, instead of guessing (see below).

Where the data comes from

The knowledge base covers 35 chemical media × 13 wetted materials with A/B/C/X compatibility ratings and temperature limits — plus 2 high-hazard media (hydrofluoric acid, oleum) that are deliberately excluded from automated selection and routed to engineering review. Ratings are compiled by cross-referencing published pump-manufacturer resistance guides (including Grundfos), specialty-alloy corrosion data (including Rolled Alloys), pump-industry material selection guides, and industry standards (ANSI/ASME B73.1, API 610, ISO 2858). Everything we use is public and verifiable — no proprietary data, no black boxes. Where sources conflict, we show you their positions directly in the report (look for "Sources disagree") and assign the most conservative rating. Ratings are assigned per concentration band — sulfuric acid, for example, is three separate entries (< 50%, 50–80% and 93–98%) because dilute, mid-range and concentrated acid are different materials problems.

What the tool refuses to answer

The tool declines to produce an automated report — and offers to forward your inquiry to the manufacturers' engineering teams — when:

• Your stated concentration is outside the band our data was compiled for
• No wetted material carries an A/B compatibility rating at your temperature — our most frequent refusal; we route it to an engineer rather than stretch a rating beyond its data
• Your temperature is beyond the standard rating of the pump class our data supports (e.g. standard submersible sewage pumps are rated to 40 °C; PTFE-lined classes to 150 °C). Where delivered special configurations exist above standard ratings, the evidence is printed on your report or refusal note (e.g. jacketed mag-drives to 350 °C, metallic-diaphragm metering heads to 200 °C) and your duty goes to the manufacturers who build them
• Your duty exceeds the single-stage end-suction envelope our supplier data covers in standard builds (head > 130 m, or flow > 400 m³/h). Delivered special configurations exist beyond that (to ~275 m / ~1,080 m³/h) — those go to the manufacturers with the evidence noted, not to a guess
• You asked for precise dosing, but the flow/viscosity/solids of your duty are outside what our rules answer automatically for metering pumps — a different injection strategy needs the manufacturers' engineering teams
• The medium is high-hazard (e.g. hydrofluoric acid, oleum) or not yet in the knowledge base

We would rather send you to an engineer than hand you a plausible-looking wrong answer.

What is free, and what the report adds

The selector is free to run, and so are the media guides and pump-family pages: they publish the primary answer at a stated reference duty. The full report — unlocked by leaving your contact details — adds the alternatives worth quoting in parallel, the RFQ-ready specification sheet, the supplier verification checklist and the full disclaimer. Either way, the engineering logic is the same versioned rule set; what changes is how much of the answer is on the page.

How this tool is funded

ChemPumpSelect is free. It is supported by Chinese manufacturing partners: on request, we can forward your inquiry to our supplier partners (pump manufacturers, primarily in China) so they can quote, after a personal review — you can withdraw before it is forwarded. This is disclosed on the homepage, in the contact form consent, and in our privacy policy. We do not endorse, warrant, or act as agent for any manufacturer — supplier evaluation and due diligence remain your responsibility, and every report includes a supplier verification checklist to help you do it.

Maintenance

The knowledge base is versioned and expanded over time. Ratings are indicative for the stated concentration and clean fluid; final material and pump selection must always be confirmed with the manufacturer's engineering team. Questions, corrections and media requests: leads@chempumpselect.com.