A typical rotary vacuum pump is comprised of a housing, a rotor and a series of radially moving vanes, which come in dry-running or lubricated versions (the latter are the most commonly used in the majority of industrial applications). The rotor is generally the only continuously moving vane vacuum pump part. There's also a working chamber inside the housing, which is divided into two separate compartments by the rotor and vanes. Many vane vacuum pumps also include an inlet valve as a safety feature.

Rotary vane vacuum pumps are available in single-stage and two-stage versions. The stages refer to the number of times that compression actually occurs. Two-stage pumps are also able to attain a lower pressure than single-stage pumps, due to the fact that gas is only admitted during the high pressure stage.

Rotary vane vacuum pumps are ideally suited for a wide range of low and medium vacuum applications such as general and chemical laboratory, analytics, freeze drying, process engineering and more. A rotary vane pump works via positive displacement, which is when volumes of air or gas are confined within a closed space and are compressed when the space is mechanically reduced.