Conventional wisdom suggests that shear stresses generated by centrifugal pumps are too high to allow use of the pumps for delivery of shear-sensitive slurries. This article shows that a shear-optimized centrifugal pump can circulate slurry with minimal damage, compared with traditional slurry delivery methods. Formation of large particles, which can cause wafer defects and limit the life of system filters, was significantly less with a centrifugal pump.