Ceramics in reflux and as boiler stones ?

[gary.angie]

Any ones views welcome
In my reflux neck (stainless steel) I am thinking i will have copper disks, same inside diameter size as reflux neck with lots of 4mm holes drilled in them .
say about 4 disks , and in between them porous ceramic beads. beads are like small 10mm by 5mm tubes with 4 mill hole in center.

I would like to also have a handful of the ceramic beads in the bottom of the still as boiler stones .

(when i was working in the lab, in my last job and we were doing boiling points on methanol, we always put boiler stones in the flask to stop boil surges.
It gives a nice frothy like boil off each stone and no turbulence in the vessel)
May be a good point to help during separation. ( comments please ? )


Gary & Angie

[plonker]

If you are looking for better reflux, then most people round here use stainless pot scrubbers.. they seem to work the best. I got about 15 of the things in my reflux...

[DrTorque]

I would have guessed that more people use copper pot scrubbers.

I remember using the stones in the pot of a giant glass distillation unit in a lab I worked at long ago... Superheating was always an issue with glass because it was so smooth and there weren't many nucleation sites on the surface to get the boiling started. The funny part was - after a while the stones would get some kind of film caked onto them from the things we were distilling, that film was very smooth, and guess what - we superheated and flooded the column almost every time we started up. I remember watching the readouts go over the boiling point, then kicking the vessel to shake up the stones. It would then boil like crazy in an instant and shoot up the column.

Unless you're using glass or a mirror-polished stainless steel vessel, I wouldn't worry about the stones.

[Dnderhead]

this works for me ,,, heat on high ,, when column starts getting hot 1/2 -3/4 the way up ,, turn heat down,after things stabilize
turn heat back up if you want,... a alarm installed at one of those points whould be nice. to "wake" one up.
tryed diferant things in the boiler, nothing worked as good.

[gary.angie]

thanks for your input , appreciated

G & A