What is peek valve seats and Why Do We Use Them?

Why Should You Choose a PEEK Valve Seat?

PEEK valves offer considerable benefits over traditional seat valves, especially in high-pressure and high-temperature applications. They are resistant to pitting and debris accumulation, making them highly desirable for environments where maintaining cleanliness is crucial.

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PEEK (polyether ether ketone) is an exceptional high-performance semi-crystalline engineering thermoplastic known for its incredible resistance to harsh chemicals, low moisture absorption, good fire performance, and excellent mechanical strength and dimensional stability across various environments.

What Are PEEK Valve Seats and Why Do We Use Them?

PEEK seal valves are ball valves featuring a small, round seat positioned on the valve body. This seat is press-fitted into the valve body and secured with a small screw. When pushed down, the seat allows the ball to drop into the valve body, facilitating quick and easy flow adjustment. PEEK valves also offer the advantage of sealing against both sides of the valve body, minimizing water leakage and reducing maintenance needs. They are available in a variety of sizes and shapes, ensuring compatibility with numerous applications.

The material PEEK degrades minimally during injection molding, making it an excellent choice for ensuring the dimensional tolerance range of injection-molded PEEK parts. This results in parts with dimensional accuracy close to that of available plastics, and its small coefficient of thermal expansion means PEEK parts exhibit minimal size change with temperature variation.

Which PEEK Valve Seat Is the Best for Your Application?

PEEK seat ball valves are favored for their effective sealing capabilities. However, not all PEEK valve seats are alike. There are different types, such as seatless PEEK valve seats, which rely on a press fit between the body and the seat, and detachable PEEK valve seats, allowing for easy cleaning and replacement. There are also screw-on PEEK valve seats, featuring a threaded insert that fits into a corresponding hole on the ball valve body.

How Do PEEK Seat Ball Valves Work?

PEEK seat ball valves are vital in controlling fluid flow within industrial and commercial piping systems. The operational mechanism involves a small arm or cam on the valve seat rotating around a central pivot. This movement allows the operator to see around the edge of the seated ball, enabling them to adjust the valve based on the fluid flow observation.

Appropriate Ball Valve Seat Materials: PTFE, PEEK, or POM

Selecting the right valve seat materials is crucial for ensuring valve performance and safety in various industries, including petrochemical and pharmaceutical sectors. Valve seats are essential for sealing fluids inside and distributing seating stress uniformly.

The most common valve seat materials are PTFE, PEEK, and POM. They offer varying degrees of fluid compatibility, temperature range, and pressure range.

Fluid Compatibility

Fluid compatibility ensures the material can operate in contact with a specific fluid without adverse reactions. PTFE, known for its high chemical compatibility, is widely used across applications. PEEK has similar properties and is also compatible with FDA-grade applications, though it may fail with sulfuric acid exposure. Conversely, POM has extensive fluid compatibility but does not perform well with oxygen flow.

For further insight, visit our compatibility tool to determine material compatibility with your application.

Temperature Range

The operational temperature range is another critical factor. For PTFE, it is between -45°C and 230°C, while PEEK can handle -56°C to 315°C, making it suitable for high-temperature applications. POM is limited to -56°C to 100°C, mainly useful where pressure is more critical than temperature.

For applications needing hot water or steam, PEEK may be the optimal choice.

Pressure Range

The pressure range defines the operating pressures where the ball valve seat material can maintain its properties. PTFE seats function well up to 350 bar. PEEK seats offer high pressure ranges, suitable for more demanding applications.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, do not hesitate to contact us. For more detailed information, visit our website and learn more about our peek o ring seals.