The Cooling Tower Project.....

[Sungy]

So you can get a better feel of what of what Im working with this is my cooling tower project running with my 3 inch valved flute.

My new Cooling Tower and my 3 inch Rig.

Here is the fan coil assembly I used to use before the cooling tower project.

My old fan coil.

Here is a few shot of the Cooling Tower.

Four pass fluid cooler coil 3/8 inch

Custom drain fitting.

Double ended blower

Top view interior

[Sungy]

Cooling tower bench testing

Cooling tower operation close up.

So here is the good stuff. The still I'm using is a 3 inch valved plate still. This run was a 12 gallon batch of birdwatchers.

So to say at the beginning that this was a project for intermediate builders.
Now I will try to give the facts for the run.

My still is in a room at 22.5 'C and 25 % Relative Humidity
The cooling water barrel is 45 gallons
My average amperage for the run is 16 amps ( 24 Amps warmup )
Barrel water temp at start up 17.8 'C

Total run time was 4 hr 30 min.
Product yield was 5 liters 190 proof.
Finish cooing water temp 24.7'C
Finish room temp 24.5 'C and 35% Relative Humidity
Cooling tower fan 200 CFM

Here are my observations for this run in comparison of previous runs.

The temperature rise of the barrel was 12'C better than any thing I have ever been able to do.

The second more valuable bit of info is that this machine is capable of unlimited run times.

WOW that was a statement to make eh.
Yup I'm impressed to..
....................while running this rig today the temp of the cooling water slowly rose until it was 0.5 'C above the room air temp. At that point the water temperature stopped rising ( this was the 2 hour 15 min mark). From there on she ran smooth as silk. The amazing part is at the end of my run I always lower the heat and slow down collection of product to keep the purity up. When I did this during this run the barrel cooling water temp actually went down 0.3'C.
The outlet water temp from the coil in the tower was a consistent 3 to 4 'C above room temp. The spray water temp ( bypass water from dephleg valve) actually comes out 4 - 5 'C lower when it exits the drain valve.
Both of these numbers varied during the run.
Delta temp of coil varied 3 - 45 'C

So thats about it for the data collection from this run. For me I am very happy with the results. The true test will be when I complete the new 4 inch flute I have in construction.

[Soggy Bottom Boy]

.

Very interesting!

Are you related to Rube Goldberg?

.

[Sungy]

I wish...... could you imagine growing up with him around....awesome.....

LOL

[manu de hanoi]

I dont get it, on your prev setup you were blowing air on the copper cooling pipe, now you are blowing air in water in contact with the cooling pipes is that correct ? Why is that better ? a very simple sketch would help.

[Sungy]

The tower works on the concept of evaporation. Think about taking a shower. Your in there nice and warm ..then shut off the water and step out....presto ...your skin becomes cold....and why is that you say....evaporation. As the water evaporates it cools your skin. I use the same in the tower. The 50'C water from my dephlegmater runs thru the coil where the spray water cools the coil. The air from the fan also cools the coil down. The magic happens when the air evaporates some of the water into vapor. That is a latent change or a change in state that has no temperature change. That change of state requires something like 760 btu's. Sensible cooling is a temperature change you can feel. Like going from 50'C to 25'C. That sensible change of 25 degree required 25 btu. As you can see the latent process will remove more heat from the coil. The part that I find most interesting is that it will maintain the 45 gallon barrel of cooling water at 1'C above the room air temperature. My next run I am planning to try this with a 5 gallon pail.

[manu de hanoi]

The tower works on the concept of evaporation. Think about taking a shower. Your in there nice and warm ..then shut off the water and step out....presto ...your skin becomes cold....and why is that you say....evaporation. As the water evaporates it cools your skin. I use the same in the tower. The 50'C water from my dephlegmater runs thru the coil where the spray water cools the coil. The air from the fan also cools the coil down. The magic happens when the air evaporates some of the water into vapor. That is a latent change or a change in state that has no temperature change. That change of state requires something like 760 btu's. Sensible cooling is a temperature change you can feel. Like going from 50'C to 25'C. That sensible change of 25 degree required 25 btu. As you can see the latent process will remove more heat from the coil. The part that I find most interesting is that it will maintain the 45 gallon barrel of cooling water at 1'C above the room air temperature. My next run I am planning to try this with a 5 gallon pail.

you you mean that the air you pump can evap some water in the tank therefore chilling it so that in turn it can chill the water in the the copper pipe circuit ?

[Sungy]

you you mean that the air you pump can evap some water in the tank therefore chilling it so that in turn it can chill the water in the the copper pipe circuit ?

That is partially correct. The air from the blower evaporates some of the water inside the tower that is spraying all over the coils. That evaporation coils the fluid inside the coil. It also cools the water spraying around inside the tower as some of the air passing by the water droplets causes some of the droplets to evaporate. leaving the remainder of the droplets a little cooler.

[manu de hanoi]

could you measure the chilling effect by running the cooling tower with the still turned off and measuring the temperature at the dropplet collection point vs the temp of the water input ?

For ex :
dropplet water input : barrel at room temp
air : room temp
dropplet collector: ??
Just for that measurement the dropplet water should not run in a loop. Or if it does the temp should be measured over time (the temp should lower gradually).

[mash rookie]

Yeah what he said!
Its not enough that it works. We want hard numbers Sungy! Next run you only get one gallon of water and 15 amps to work with for the still and tower.
What was the temp change in your room?


I am still waiting for close up pictures of your dephlag after it is polished.

[Sungy]

I thought I documented every thing.
The outlet of the cooling tower is ducted to the return air for my furnace. The house temperature went up about 1.5'C after a 5 hour run. The house humidity went up 10 to 12 %. The air temp at start up of the run in my stillin room was 22.5'C and at the end around 24.5"C. I do get radiant heat from the keg and column in the stillin room. My barrel sits on the basement floor and its some cold out side. So the water is at 18'C at startup. As stated before I was disappointed that the barrel temperature rose at all (slowly and steadily for 2.5 hr). But the laws of thermodynamics live on...and thus when the water temp was 1'C above the air temp the water temp stopped rising and maintained 25'C for 2.5 hours.

With a larger coil I think the performance can be further improved.
I was thinking of making a set of headers and running many tubes between the headers to make panels then taking 4 panels and stacking them to make the panel bundle. And still have it fit into the same space in the tower.

I to cant wait for the new rig to be complete. Christmas and a busy work schedule dont lend to much free time.

[maddmatt]

Just to get this clear, your water exits your delphagmator, then runs through the cooling manifold pipes, then runs into the spraybar which sprays that same water down onto the cooling manifold pipes it just exited, and finally drips down into your collection barrel below for recirculating. Is the copper scrubbing material packed in there just to get extra surface area and slow down the sprayed water?

[Sungy]

Just to get this clear, your water exits your delphagmator, then runs through the cooling manifold pipes,

yes. then this exits back into the barrel.

then runs into the spraybar which sprays that same water down onto the cooling manifold pipes it just exited,

no. this water is from the bypass line from the valve infront of the dephlegmater ( excess water not needed to control the dephlegmater)

Is the copper scrubbing material packed in there just to get extra surface area and slow down the sprayed water?

yes more surface area and more contact time. The coil I made for this is just a bit to small and in the next version it will be bigger.

[Sungy]

After many runs I have concluded that the coil I made was to small. So after some brain storming this is what I came up with.

I have 7 layers of coil to make. I have 12 tubes per layer for a total of 84 tubes 8.5 inches long or almost 6o feet of 1/4 copper. There will be green scrubbies in between layers to slow down the air / water contact time. This section was made just to see if I could build it but now I have to make a bunch more. When done this will still fit into the same space as the old one and be a lot more efficient. I cant wait to try this one. The performance of the old coil was fine for my 3 inch still but my new 4 inch will need more power to run it and as a result need more cooling.

[Azure]

Now I know why my radiator/fan combo keeps rising in temp then stalls, ambient temperature. Thanks for the otherwise obvious answer to my coolant observation.

[Sungy]

Ive been out in the shed today. I finished the re designed coil. After a quick pressure test it seem leak free.

Now to retro fit it into the tower.

[Lunabrille]

Nice coil, Sungy. I bet that was a bugger soldering that up!

I'm in the process of building a cooling tower myself and thinking of implementing a coil. I don't have much room as im using 4" PVC but was thinkIng of doing a double or triple wound coil of some sort. No where near the surface area you have there! At any rate, I'm eager to see the finished product and hear the results.