A peristaltic pump has no mechanical seal and no valve. A shoe presses the hose flat against the pump body, and the occlusion travels round and carries the trapped volume to the discharge. The medium never leaves the bore.

That single fact is why the type survives abrasive slurry and aggressive chemistry. There is nothing in the wetted path for the medium to attack. It is also why the hose gets all the attention: every failure mode the pump has runs through it.

So the specification question on a peristaltic is not really "which pump". It is "which hose, and how often". Answer those and you have specified the duty.

Four compounds cover most industrial duty. Crane publishes an operative range for each on the ELRO datasheets, and the medium plus its temperature decides between them.

Two points that catch people out. NR is the abrasion compound, not a general-purpose one, so on a ceramic slip or a grit slurry it usually outlasts a chemically fancier hose. And CSM is the conductive one, which is what you specify when static is a concern rather than because it resists more.

Food-grade variants exist but not across the whole range: Crane lists food-grade NR on the ELRO IP range and food-grade NBR on the XP range. Check the specific pump rather than assuming the compound is available on it.

A peristaltic hose fails by fatigue, not by wearing thin. Every revolution flexes the same piece of rubber flat and lets it spring back, and the compound eventually cracks in the reinforcement. That is normal, expected, and the reason the hose is a scheduled consumable rather than a repair.

What shortens it:

• Running faster than the duty needs. Hose life is counted in flexures, so speed costs you life directly. A larger pump turning slowly outlasts a small one worked hard.
• Discharge pressure at the top of the band. Crane codes the ELRO IP and XP pumps in pressure bands up to 10–13 bar. Sitting at the ceiling works the hose harder than sitting mid-band.
• Temperature at the compound's limit. All four compounds stop at +80 °C, and the medium's temperature, not the ambient, is the one that counts.
• The wrong lubricant. ELRO pump codes pair each compound with either a silicone or a glycerin lubricant. It is part of the pump code for a reason.
• Running dry for long periods. There is no seal to lose, which is the type's real advantage, but a dry hose still flexes and heats with nothing carrying the heat away.

Plan the change rather than waiting for it. On the ELRO IP range the vacuum monitoring on the hose chamber detects a hose failure instead of letting you find out downstream, which is worth specifying where a burst would contaminate product.

Hose bore is how a peristaltic is sized, because bore and speed together give you the flow. On the ELRO stationary range that runs from 15 mm on an IP100 to 91 mm on an XP800.

To specify a hose, send the medium with its worst-case chemistry and solids, the temperature, the duty point, and the pump if you already have one. We will come back with the compound and the bore.

FIRST-PARTY TODO: replace with real observed hose-life figures from CP installations

once the ELRO range has been in service long enough to have them.