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Here is the small $12 \; V$ pump that I am looking at. The manufacturer called the product as DC brushless centrifugal circulation small water pump but under its description it mentions that it is a single stage pump.

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I wonder what the difference is? Is it a misleading description or title or do those terms are used interchangeably?

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    $\begingroup$ No, it's not misleading, and they are not interchangeable. You can have two stage centrifugal pumps, and single stage non-centrifugal pumps. The number of stages is its own independent property. $\endgroup$
    – Jonathan R Swift
    Mar 18, 2021 at 13:06
  • $\begingroup$ @JonathanRSwift Hi Jonathan, thanks for commenting. So it is not a centrifugal pump? The title says it is? I am confused. $\endgroup$
    – CountDOOKU
    Mar 18, 2021 at 13:08

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Single stage and centrifugal are describing two different properties.

A single stage pump is a pump that only has one acting impeller stage doing work on the fluid. If you put two pumps in series, you could say that you have a two-stage pumping setup. Some pumps are built with multiple stages - this is usually for high pressure applications.

A centrifugal pump is the style of impeller / casing. Centrifugal pumps use an impeller similar to what is shown below, and they rotate in a way that utilizes centrifugal force to do work on the fluid, in this case creating pressure and driving the flow.

enter image description here

You could have a single stage centrifugal pump, a multiple stage centrifugal pump, a single stage NON-centrifugal pump, or a multistage NON-centrifugal pump setup. Below is a generic example of a multiple stage centrifugal pump - note that there are multiple impellers, and they don't have to be completely separate pumps - each of these increases the pressure supplied to the next impeller, so as to increase the pressure of the next impeller's discharge.

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For the vast majority of applications (especially water), single stage centrifugal pumps sized correctly cover most applications.

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