HM Jacket?

[Milkman]

I am wondering what peoples opinions are of instead of using insultaion on a VM column. Using a water jacket surrounding the column that collects the output fom the coil condenser. Its just an idea, mostly because I prefer shiney copper. Was thinking it might add some efficiancy too, recycling all that heat that is being lost down the drain. Opinions? Just thought of HM jacket as it is the opposite of CM jacket : )

[Prairiepiss]

Are you talking flowing water or a jacket just full of water? I'm no expert they will sure chime in. But I think flowing water would cause to much reflux disturbing the flow needed for a VM. And just a water jacket (no flow) would mess the temperature gradient of the column up. The heated water will rise and the cooler water will fall. So your column would be bass ackwards in temp. And I think it would do the same with flow because of the mass of water you are talking about.

[Milkman]

I was talking about flowing water. It was your design that got me thinking about it lol. I had thought that the water exiting the coil condensor would be a pretty stable temp and once the jacket was full and running at a steady pace it would stay that way adding a steady heat to the colmn that might give the still some energy efficiancy by recycling the heat. I guess it would not need to encompass the whole column maybe just something like the size you built for cooling around the base. I am just asking questions hell if I knew these answers I wouldnt ask just curious.

[Prairiepiss]

Like I said I'm no expert. I was just throwing my 2 cents in.

I just think water would be a bad thing under the takeoff of a VM. Now if you made a jacket around the column that had a vacuum that would be a good insulater. Like a criotainer used to store liquified gas like LOX. Now that's something I do know a lot about. The problem with that would be I don't think the copper could handle the pressure created by the vacuum needed for it to be effective. I will shut up now and let someone more versed school us both.

[Milkman]

Well you will be making this if it sounds like it will work : )

Really just looking for benefit of insulation without covering up some pretty copper.

Get off these damn forums and get to work on your build I have been following it.

[myles]

There is a water jacket heated still head but that is not quite the same thing. We generally try to set up a temperature gradient in the column. That could be difficult to control if you add in a water jacket with the variations it would introduce.

Good insulation on the column is easy to get, although several folks do run with uninsulated columns. Probably less energy efficient though.

[rad14701]

Using the exiting condenser coolant to insulate the column will not work due to excessive induced reflux as mentioned... It takes very little temperature drop to make the rising vapor collapse into reflux liquid... For such a system to work you would almost need to circulate hot wash through your insulating jacket...

[MudDuck]

Really just looking for benefit of insulation without covering up some pretty copper.

Maybe a copper jacket filled with some of that expanding foam insulation that you get in a can will do what you want.

[Samohon]

For my VM I use a tailored cotton jacket Mrs Sam made for it. Its stuffed with 1" of a loft insulation blanket we had left over.
It fastens to the VM column with Velcro and I've had no problems with it...

My VM column is 1500mm high and for a packet column, it needs to be able to stack different fractions at different temperatures. I think that a water jacket supplied from the output from the reflux coil would eventually cause the stacking inside the column to equilibrate to the temp of the water jacket and the reflux temp overtime. You must remember, that as the compounds leave the vapour path and are drawn off through the product outlet, so the fractions move up the packing and with it, the temperature. IMO, the spent coolant from the RC would indeed cause an in-balance, if not while drawing off the heads, then certainly while drawing off the hearts, defeating the purpose of either VM/LM systems.

Not saying that it would behave like that, just saying that I would expect it from my LM/VM Combo..

My VM, and most others, are very easy to run. In fact, it runs itself when I get to the hearts, even cuts off automatically when when theres very little alc left in the vapour. A lot is still unknown about how the VM behaves as it does behave. I'm just glad it works flawlessly...


Hope it helps...

[myles]

You have that nailed down quite well Samohon. The principle of the jacket heated still head is that it uses the temperature of the heated jacket to control what product is produced at any given time. I really think that putting a heated jacket on a column would be counter productive.

Milkman your OP raised the issue of recovering the heat from the coil condenser. That concept should be encouraged, but this is not the way to do it. Use it by all means for some use - wash preheater for example, but not on the column, as it will just introduce other problems and upset your temperature gradient.

[Milkman]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I am still new to this and I am just trying to learn all I can. I have an old coil from my 1st still. I think I may try to repurpose this as a mash heater for stripping runs.