Designers, manufacturing and maintenance professionals have, for a long time, used braided packing and mechanical seals to control shaft leakage. These devices typically work through the use of compression forces acting on seal materials to close leak paths. However, these forces are also the source of friction and abrasion, causing heat buildup and often, premature seal failure and damage to the shaft and other seal parts. The use of these devices requires external cooling to minimize premature seal failure, and therefore adds to the downstream wastewater treatment burden and costs (for instance, a process pump with a 3" shaft and using braided packing would consume about 1.5 million gallons of cooling water annually.) Check out the article "Dealing with the shaft seal challenge" June 2001 issue of Fluid Handling Systems Magazine) for more details. Kem-A-Trix IFS^TM Injectable Fluid Seal is new shaft sealing technology that has been gaining wide acceptance in a select range of applications for pumps, valves and agitators over the past several years. It is made with a blend of finely divided colloidal fibers and impregnated with synthetic lubricants. Installed with specially prepared anti-extrusion gaskets (restrictors) at both the impeller and gland-end of the stuffing box, it forms a rigid yet compliant lubricated sealing plug that provides near-zero leakage without external cooling.