Water cooling contraption

[zach]

My 1/3 hp aquarium chiller is rated at 4,000 btu/hr with input power of 860 watts. Not sure what temperature the rating is but I would guess 40 F outlet water.

For the above, the COP is 1.36 which is poor, (1171 W/860 W) , but it was cheap so I did not expect much. At 40 F outlet water commercial air cooled chillers would have a COP of 2.2 to 3.5

I would expect a 1/6 hp chiller to produce 2,000 btu/hr of cooling and consume 400 watts of power .

[Yummyrum]

I’m no thermal guy either but I was always lead to believe that the real power is roughly 4x the power consumption label due to efficiency of the refrigeration gas at moving heat .
Which goes along with pipes + hoses guestimation of 400w draw and can handle 1600w of heat .

In reality , if you are doing a stripping run with a large reservoir to begin with , it will probably take the edge off enough to get the job done .

In a Spirit run , you are likely to only be using 1600w or less ( in a Pot still) so it will be perfectly adequate for hours of operation .

[Corn Cracker]

I've got 2 drinking fountains in the garage that I've thought about trying to use but their cooling capacity isn't adequate for what we do. I've got a couple of window unit air conditioners, that from what I understand work well having the chill coil bent down to be inside the chill water reservoir, i could donate one to the cause but it seems sketchy. I don't care for drain to waste, my pump for the water well is pretty expensive to have replaced, $7k 10 years ago, it's probably not ever going to be an issue but still it'd be nice to use a 30 or 55 gallon drum and recirculate it.

[BigSwede]

Try this chiller as the final step in your recirculation set up before the condenser. Also try it as an earlier step , for science! See which hits a lower coolant injection temp after things equalizes.

I had no idea 400 watts of electricity consumption could move more BTU than simply converting watts to BTU over time. Too much math.

I like the idea of plumbing it inline, directly before injecting into the condenser. Don't heat exchangers generally work better when the temp gradient is larger? Like so: The "Direct" method

chill3.jpg

vs the "Indirect" method, where a chiller attempts to cool the reservoir

chill4.jpg

I'll stop overthinking it and just give it a shot. Have a bag of ice handy to dump in the reservoir. I'll also monitor the condenser out temp. Should be interesting.

[pipes+hose]

I assumed you had a radiator, so i had thought give the radiator the hottest water so it works the best.

but maybe you don't and your just running on the water tank.

It occurs to me now the chiller might have its own water circulation/pump that you don't want to over drive with your main pump. So you might be forced to do indirect. If so i would try to have the chiller pick up water near where the warm water comes into the tank.

I also wouldn't want to cook the chiller with 60c (150f?) water.

[zach]

Now, I run 3KW into the still for 1 hour = 10,245 BTU. 20% heat loss, now we're at 8196 BTU to condense over that hour. In theory then, with no chilling, our 30 gallon reservoir will be somewhere north of 100 deg. f.

My little chiller perhaps soaks up 3400 BTU. If I'm lucky. 8196 - 3400 = 4796 BTU, reservoir climbs from 70 f. to about 90 f. Run the still for 4 hours, water will be pretty hot. Well, shit. I may just try it once on a strip, have a bag of ice on hand.

It will require many bags if you run very long at 3 KW input.

A 10 lb bag of ice will provide about 2,000 Btu of cooling. The latent heat of fusion for ice is 144 btu/lb and the sensible heat for water is 1 btu per pound per degree F.

10 lbs x [144 Btu/lb + (90 F-32 F) x (1 Btu/lb F)] = 2,040 Btu

[Yummyrum]

Here’s the plate on one of our aircons .

IMG_5163.jpeg

On cooling , it draws 0.66kw and provides 2.6kw of cooling .
2.6/0.66 = 3.9 efficiency .

On heating , it draws 0.78kw and provides 3.2kw of heating .

3.2/0.78 = 4.1 efficiency .

I’m no thermal guy either but I was always lead to believe that the real power is roughly 4x the power consumption label due to efficiency of the refrigeration gas at moving heat .
Which goes along with pipes + hoses guestimation of 400w draw and can handle 1600w of heat .

In reality , if you are doing a stripping run with a large reservoir to begin with , it will probably take the edge off enough to get the job done .

In a Spirit run , you are likely to only be using 1600w or less ( in a Pot still) so it will be perfectly adequate for hours of operation .

Looking back at Big swedes chiller, I missed the point about 1/6HP . The input is 1/6 HP , not 400w

1HP =748 watts so 1/6 x 748 = 124.5 watts .

Multiply that by the refrigeration efficiency ( 3.9 from my wxample above )
Comes out at 485 watts of cooling . I suspect is why the rating is 400watts ( probably not as efficient as a modern reverse-cycle aircon)

And this is in line with what Zach suggested earlier , that one would need a 1- 1.5HP unit to pull 4kw of heat out .

With 5 KW heat input to your boiler, your condenser will reject 4 KW of heat if you have 20% losses to atmosphere from the boiler and piping

4 KW of cooling which is equivalent to 13,648 Btu/hr or 1.14 tons refrigeration. You'll need a 1 to 1.5 hp chiller to keep up with this load. This 1/6 hp aquarium chiller will not keep up.

1HP 748 w X 3.9( efficiency) = 2.91kw of cooling power .

1.5HP 748w X 1.5 X 3.9 = 4.375kw of cooling power .

[shadylane]

"Water cooling contraption"

Read the headline, dang this is easy.
So, let's assume air will ultimately be used to dissipate the heat captured when vapor is condensed into liquid.
That's a simple problem, use heat itself transfer heat from vapor to the air.
The simplest and most efficient way is an air-cooled condenser.

The most complex and least efficient way is using an air-conditioner that transfers heat to the air, so it can chill water, that's pumped through a condenser, so the water can absorb the heat released when condensing alcohol vapor into a liquid.
Hells of fire, that sounds like Rube Goldberg cartoon.

[BigSwede]

Sounds like a bust. I'm still wondering how "Jesse's New Toy" - the muffin fan condenser (viewtopic.php?t=96401) - can knock down almost 3KW continuously.

I have a 30 gallon reservoir to try closed loop. I'll stick the chiller in series between the pump and the condenser. Might not work, but after all this, I need to see.

If the chiller system fails, which it probably will, next step is some finned copper + airflow between the condenser out line and the reservoir. I'd love to get my hands on something like this without a 2nd mortgage:

Finned.jpg

[Corn Cracker]

Sounds like a bust. I'm still wondering how "Jesse's New Toy" - the muffin fan condenser (viewtopic.php?t=96401) - can knock down almost 3KW continuously.

I have a 30 gallon reservoir to try closed loop. I'll stick the chiller in series between the pump and the condenser. Might not work, but after all this, I need to see.

If the chiller system fails, which it probably will, next step is some finned copper + airflow between the condenser out line and the reservoir. I'd love to get my hands on something like this without a 2nd mortgage:

Finned.jpg

https://voomisupply.com/products/slant- ... 63458c650b
they have stuff like this, pretty economical

[Salt Must Flow]

Similar to what Corn Cracker posted only less expensive.

Here's a link to copper fins for copper pipe.

I didn't search around long at all, but people here have used fins like this before. I think it may have been Shady.

[zach]

If you look for spiral fin coil it's possible to find copper fins like this that can be added to pipe.

I see a listing for $22 for enough to cover 1 meter of 16 mm OD tube with 6 mm fins. This would fit nicely on 1/2" copper pipe.

fin.jpg

[Yummyrum]

Now theres a machine to make Bigswede

[BigSwede]

Now theres a machine to make Bigswede

An easy one! Either the slip on stuff, or the finned copper Corn Cracker found:

fins01.jpg

Take two of these, form into a tall "U" shape, and when condenser water flows in, it fills up the "U" before draining into a reservoir. That will ensure it's full of water with minimal back pressure. Add some muffin fans.

I know it's been done here a dozen times. It wouldn't be hard to make an air-cooled condenser that way too, except with straight through gravity flow. For now at least I just want a closed loop condensing system.

[Corn Cracker]

I'm gonna think about this and come up with something, running or stripping in potstill mode wastes a lot of water on the ground, 2 inch ccvm is only a trickle. I think i figured it'd take just under 120 gallons of recirculated chill water to end up around 100f at the end of a run, a 250 gallon caged water tote would be nice to set up witha pump, fittings, water and chlorine but 3 or 4 of these fins set up on top of each other with a good fan would have a much smaller foot print

[shadylane]

My 2 cents, simplicity works. Unless there's a reason Ya can't do it that way, then water cooling contraptions become necessary.
In other words, if possible use an oversized liebig and a tickle of water from a garden hose.

If limited to a "water tote" I wouldn't use a pump to feed a liebig. Instead I'd put a worm in the tote, thereby deleting 2 components.
If I had to use a liebig and pump, I'd add a radiator and fan so a " large reservoir of water" isn't needed to store the captured heat.

Here's a pic of an air-cooled product condenser I played with. It could knock down 5kw of steam and easily condense 50% alcohol vapor.
Just guessing, the only additional power needed was 100w for the fan.
I also did an air-cooled LM reflux condenser that used the same 4 tubes in parallel @ 1800W

[shadylane]

Here's some pics of the packed 2" air-cooled LM without the shields to direct to cooling air flow.

[BigSwede]

Thanks for the suggestions, Shady. Those look like some of those "slant fin" copper elements that Corn Cracker posted. I believe they are made for HVAC use as baseboard radiators and the like. I especially like the LM condenser concept. I assume there's forced airflow to ensure 100% knock-down? Yes I see it.

Nicely done.

[Yummyrum]

I like it too Shady .

At first glance , it looks like a cell phone tower …. Clever disguise

[30xs]

IMG_4545.png

I used this setup on a low wines charge in a keg boiler and at the end of a long run I still hadn’t swapped out any water and was able to condense everything. It would run 2 full charge stripping runs back to back without issue using a 20 gallon barrel for a reservoir. The main thing I noticed is that I needed to running cooking water as slow as possible. The slow flow creates the hottest water, but it also spends a longer timeframe in the radiator to cool. You don’t want a fast flow through. Trying to cool water that is 50 degrees above ambient with slow flow is more effective than a fast flow that is only 5-10 degrees warmer. I did build a raised loop for the return to keep the radiator full. Fed the top and the bottom return height set the depth inside the radiator.

[BigSwede]

The slow flow creates the hottest water, but it also spends a longer timeframe in the radiator to cool. You don’t want a fast flow through. Trying to cool water that is 50 degrees above ambient with slow flow is more effective than a fast flow that is only 5-10 degrees warmer. I did build a raised loop for the return to keep the radiator full. Fed the top and the bottom return height set the depth inside the radiator.

Very nice setup 30XS. Do you find any significant back pressure from the labyrinth of the radiator? No pump straining type issues? Doesn't sound like it.

[30xs]

The slow flow creates the hottest water, but it also spends a longer timeframe in the radiator to cool. You don’t want a fast flow through. Trying to cool water that is 50 degrees above ambient with slow flow is more effective than a fast flow that is only 5-10 degrees warmer. I did build a raised loop for the return to keep the radiator full. Fed the top and the bottom return height set the depth inside the radiator.

Very nice setup 30XS. Do you find any significant back pressure from the labyrinth of the radiator? No pump straining type issues? Doesn't sound like it.

It was 100% free flow for the water. If memory serves me correct it was a three row radiator, so no more restriction than filling up a bucket. A radiator with opposite corner inlet/outlet configuration would probably be the best, but I don’t feel like there’s much laminar flow since the cooled water wants to find bottom.