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Corerftech wrote: ↑Tue Jun 07, 2022 5:20 pm So the water levels are poorly drawn but suffice to say they will be arranged so that the order of flow and level is appropriate. Also the interconnect between the boiler and passive radiator (seemed like an appropriate name for it) would be intimately short to ensure lowest heat loss. Basically conjoined at a specific angle and part of a “structure” for the whole system. The third waste vessel might be best used for the preheat coils which could be pretty huge in surface area. If heat is good for the second column, then retention is mandatory. Preheat wouldn’t start until the passive rad vessel was overflowing with nearly full boiling water.

I am not an artist! If it was a schematic it would be vastly better.

PID will control boiler, I like using PID for everything. Lead pots, my heat treat kiln for casing gun parts, everything that gets hot!

I’d like to employ two added thermocouples at top of columns to be able to chart temps. May help return to a quiescent point faster of visualize a lack somewhere. I’d add more later too, never can have too much data.

66DD5641-E3E3-4727-A68F-920A9C415CB6.jpeg

That won't work. The goal is to be efficient in time and energy, 190 proof out the top, and 212 Temps in the boiler. This implies very low alcohol out the bottom.

What you have is a so so stripper and a pot reflux column on the right. The right side pot will require 3 times the energy.

Instead you could have a pump that lifts the liquid at the bottom of the right column to the top of the left column. And have your vapor from the left colum go to the bottom of the right column.

This is fuel ONLY. many parts are not suitable for consumption
R

>>>Is there an advantage to having a narrow linear boiler rather than a larger boiler (

*******It doesn't matter the shape or volume of the boiler as long as the heating element stays submerged. I angled mine to reduce overall still height. ***(

>>>>>Q2: I have a section of 4 inch SS tube in hand, 3 foot. I can adapt it to the boiler above and add a 6 inch to 4 reducer flange so that the boiler is serviceable and the 4 inch stripper section is as well. Is 4 inch too much? I have 36 inches of clean thin wall SS/4” to work with. Is 36 inch too short for just the stripper section??


***** I use a 4 inch stripper 36 inches long******


>>>>Q3: I have in hand, about 20 feet of 1.75 ID SS and some 1.25 ID. I also have about 38 inch of flanged 2.75 ID. Is there an issue with narrowing the rectifier from 4inch to 3 (2.75 actual ID)inch? So 6 inch boiler tank @ (24 inch tall) which gives a broader surface area to emit vapor/heat), then at the top of the 3 foot/ 4 inch stripper, add the 3 inch rectifier? Or see alternative Q#5

*****I use 3 inch rectifier. All this is available at any muffler shop very inexpensive. ******

Q4: thermal insulation of the stripper and the boiler? Any harm in conserving energy? There will still be a gradient in stripper especially at 3 feet (or 6 feet if both sections are stacked) so natural reflux will occur from the gradient. I have lots of rock wool available to insulate at least the boiler and the stripper if it will help.

*******?I recommend you keep it simple. I wrapped the column with towels. Fiberglass insulation would also work.

>>>>Q5: I see a loss of heat and more internal friction/lower vapor speed if the column is split into two pieces (height savings attempt, although maybe not needed!)

So with that said, if the boiler gets the 3 foot/4” stripper (and the beer was injected at the TOP of the semi-packed stripper column), could/would the system operate similar in performance IF the rectifier column was adjacent (not in series vertically), center Fed (fairly massive height, maybe 6 feet) by an insulated stainless hard pipe interconnect?
I.e., Charles 803 (think that’s the right name), except instead of a boiler pumping into the column, the stripper/boiler combo is pumping sideways into a second separate column.

So basically- a high speed stripper running in continuous Fed fashion, feeding a passive rectifier, with a similar effluent basin and also having an overflow?

Or maybe this-
Primary boiler with 4-5kw element under the stripper column, top fed. An overflow pipe from boiler to overflow basin sending boiling waste to a second vessel at base of the rectifier, offset in height so that gravity keeps both vessels at operable levels, then a tertiary overflow for the second vessel (actual waste).


This (in my crude simpleton thinking without any experience) would keep the heat from heater elements in play feeding the stripper, the rectifier, and then the beer preheat exchanger (installed in the tertiary vessel).

That would give every bit of alcohol two opportunities to be extracted.

*****No. This will not work. ******


Last question:
Secret valve??? Will you identify the secret valve?

***** which secret valve? The feed rate of rhe beer going instead be consistent and at the right speed. A ball valve is not suitable. A positive displacement pump with speed control is what is needed. ******

I feel like the "passive" reboiler in the system could introduce (or reintroduce) lower proof into the distillate vapor stream? Does the riser on the reboiler have any packing?
That is, if there is even enough heat available to flash (there is that flash word again stevea) and drive any alcoholic vapor out of the reboiler?

Its doable with enough primary heat input. My reboiler has the option of applying it's own heat or not. All depending on the target temperatures the distiller chooses. Such choices contribute to flavor profiles for spirits. For fuel production I would imagine such choices merely impact the purity of the finished distillate?

As for cheap packing that is easy to service;

Drmiller100 uses marbles.
Many others use copper or SS scrubbers.

A 3.25 inch scrubber “should” fit snug enough in the columns to form a “plate”
No support parts are needed to retain as in case of marbles. They would have lower mass as well (maybe that’s a bad thing/good thing for heat?)

Should the scrubbers be installed as a single column or in layers like bubbler plates?
Each scrubber is Approx 1.25 thick once installed (they are slightly thinner but when compressed in 2.75 inch pipe, they will grow) so there would be as many as 20 layers in a 36 inch pipe section.

Also the beer will have some solids like chlorophyll, fine cellulose, etc. only so much iou can do with sieves and filtering before distillation. It seems plugging up of the “plates” could occur as the solids drip out of solution.
Experiences? Concerns? Scrubbers will pass liquid and vapor easily to and fro but like scrubbing a thick dirty plate in a sink, they will gunk up easily. Pressure issues arise?

I don’t see marbles being any better. May take a bit longer but crap will accumulate.

For a pump, an air compressor regulated to a number, feeding a tank with feedstock, straw in vessel about 4 inch from bottom with a Uni-filter on it. Add PSI, flow commences.

Pressure controls rate and gives a repeatable value that can be gauged.

Following the heat devices, a stainless line feeds a custom stainless injector. Injector has a fan out wall. Injector partially atomizes the feedstock allowing for more rapid vaporization of the ethanol component at entry. I believe the orifice could be sized sufficiently to provide safety from plugging even with the very fine solids. It might take a few attempts with polluted water to get the nozzle correct.
Ala Hilborn fuel injection. Hard lines, high pressure pump, fixed unregulated nozzles. Or a pop-up lawn sprinkler head, a smallish orifice spraying at a fan out plate to form a specific dispersion pattern.

Certainly atomizing the feedstock has to make things work better! It works for your patio air cooling, HP water, misted into air, drops temps 30 degrees in a heartbeat. The smaller the droplet, the less heat needed to extract ethanol from the droplet. The heat is in the system, but is it vaporizing the available alcohol as efficiently as possible? Coupling heat with alcohol more effectively. Misted feedstock—- my morning thoughts.

What if that happened at multiple levels in the column?

I actually found a substantial study from India on aerosolization of the feedstock. It produces good separation, nearly instantly, on 12% vol feedstock pumping to 50%, at 40’C on 24 inches of column.

But the beat part is it can break the azeotropic bond on 96% and give nearly 99.8% in the same 24 inch column, single pass at same temp.

Found it interesting. If anyone wants the document I’ll send a link.

I wonder if a 24 inch section of 4 inch with a nozzle atomizing above the boiler would flash off large amounts and reinforce or improve just the stripping efficiency in Doug’s continuous system.
It would be easy to deploy and undo with a pipe plug.

Corerftech wrote: ↑Thu Jun 09, 2022 5:52 am I actually found a substantial study from India on aerosolization of the feedstock. It produces good separation, nearly instantly, on 12% vol feedstock pumping to 50%, at 40’C on 24 inches of column.

But the beat part is it can break the azeotropic bond on 96% and give nearly 99.8% in the same 24 inch column, single pass at same temp.

Found it interesting. If anyone wants the document I’ll send a link.

I wonder if a 24 inch section of 4 inch with a nozzle atomizing above the boiler would flash off large amounts and reinforce or improve just the stripping efficiency in Doug’s continuous system.
It would be easy to deploy and undo with a pipe plug.

Link please

This link allows you to download the full pdf.
No fees for this document on researchgate.

Table 3 is the most significant bit of data compiled IMHO. And the 12% wash yielding over 70% recovery on a single pass was shocking to me.

The author suggests a taller column may help yield. Temps were held to 104F, I wonder if moving up 20-30 degrees might influence the performance on a single pass. The author never attempted any other temperatures than 40C/104F.

If you read carefully and completely, hair dryers were used in the 11inch diameter test column to generate heat.

I think the author was boxed into the thesis. Incorporating this idea into existing stills is where the magic will happen. (Maybe the big boys already do this)

I don’t think what was done directly is useful but—— given the fact that certain portions of the column of any still are holding 150F which will flash off ethanol quickly, and potentially be able to maintain such a temperature if the feedstock rate is not too high, then it seems that maybe the injection point of the continuous column still may be such that a high pressure atomizing nozzle and a portion of the column that has ZERO packing may be worthwhile to create a chamber that ensures upwards of 70% yield at injection. Instant stripper!!!

Heat still comes from a boiler. Packing/plates exist above and below the spray column section to perform enrichment as usual.
Basically a mid column stripper that generates very high ABV for upper system to do its job with, faster.

The author only used 1 nozzle and it was running very slow at 15ml/min. That’s very slow. There is no mention of a higher rate attempted as they held to simulation parameters strictly, except column height. Maybe the idea craps out at high flow rates. In any case- if at 104F at atmospheric pressure, you can spray feedstock and instantly yield 50% of the available ethanol, then let the boiler do its job on the rest.

What if the feedstock was preheated (theirs was room temp). Injected up and down with a more significant heat source below (3-4kw) and using a boiler that saturated heat into the system with more authority. A plate directly above the boiler, or two. A fairly vast lower column only having the 2 lower plates and a long long empty section,2 nozzles(up/down), transition to an upper packed column. The boiler is still doing what it does and it’s performance doesn’t change. Simply initial input of feedstock changes phase faster which shortens the boiler run time and lowers total energy used. If the run time was cut by 30%, that’s huge, right?

Is it possible that maybe an injector can be used to creat me a cooled region like a reflux condenser except the knockdown is with feedstock and not cold water In a jacket?


I don’t have a clue what I am saying, just that a must of feedstock must have a performance application in a column still.

Drmiller100, how large a line is delivering the feedstock to your column and what orifice diameter enters the column injection point?
Is the feedstock just dripping in, spraying, flowing smoothly, down the side of the column??
Can you show a detail of that section as a drawing?
Does it just slam into a load of marbles or dispense into an empty section?



https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ir ... ion_detail

I read the abstract. It has several errors.

If you start with 12 percent, and you boil it, what etoh concentration is the vapor? (Hint: "it depends" is the wrong answer.

The useful answers would be 3/8 inch, and it "slams into marbles." At a rate of 20 to 25 gallons an hour.

Would you mind citing the page number and paragraph of what you found in error?

Corerftech wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 4:17 am Would you mind citing the page number and paragraph of what you found in error?

The abstract is written. Like a presidential press release. Utter bullshit

>>>>>***Whereas feed concentration of 96% ethanol could produce ethanol concentration output up to 99% v/v. The process could recover 40-80% of ethanol from the feed.<<<<

drmiller100 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 7:15 pm

Corerftech wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 4:17 am Would you mind citing the page number and paragraph of what you found in error?

The abstract is written. Like a presidential press release. Utter bullshit

Whereas feed concentration of 96% ethanol could produce ethanol concentration output up to 99% v/v. The process could recover 40-80% of ethanol from the feed.

drmiller100
Can you clarify this post . I can’t work out what is your personal comment and what you are quoting .

Yummyrum wrote: ↑Sun Jun 12, 2022 6:42 am

drmiller100 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 7:15 pm

Corerftech wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 4:17 am Would you mind citing the page number and paragraph of what you found in error?

The abstract is written Like a presidential press release. Utter bullshit

Whereas feed concentration of 96% ethanol could produce ethanol concentration output up to 99% v/v. The process could recover 40-80% of ethanol from the feed.

drmiller100
Can you clarify this post . I can’t work out what is your personal comment and what you are quoting .

You are seeing my posts!!!! I edited it. Better?

Thanks ,thats clearer .