Cooling water in a close loop

gerpud · Post by **gerpud** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 1:01 pm

Does any body have done a close loop to cool the coolant of the condenser? Anybody knows how it can be done? I've done some research and I find it pretty complicated.
Problems I met:
- Find a proper radiator, I mean, a big enough radiator to cool 2.5Kw with about 1 gal/min of water with its fan.
- Find a pump strong (high pressure) but low flow (1gal/min) to overcome the head loss of the radiator and the condenser.

Finding all that under 400$ seems also complicated.

Anybody has suggestions?

speedfreaksteve · Post by **speedfreaksteve** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 1:14 pm

Here's one way to do it:

-$20 aquarium pump or $50 pond pump
-hoses
-50 gallon drum (steel or plastic) or large plastic garbage can

I plan on oneday setting up a rig like this so I can distill without being dependent on water from the house.

speedfreaksteve · Post by **speedfreaksteve** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 1:15 pm

Woops double post.

Stillhead · Post by **Stillhead** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 1:20 pm

The only thing that sucks about using a pump, is you are just trading one energy for another. I use enough electricity to power my heating element. I wish I could utilize renewable energy more in the city.

gerpud · Post by **gerpud** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 1:36 pm

"The only thing that sucks about using a pump, is you are just trading one energy for another. I use enough electricity to power my heating element. I wish I could utilize renewable energy more in the city."

By using a radiator, you can reuse the energy to heat your house.
You don't put a big amount of hot potable water in the drain.
I think it's enough to try to do better.

For the 50 gallon drum, I not sure running 3kW for 4 hours would do do the without overheating. It is not convinient when you live in a small appartement and you need to move you still in the closet.

Post by **Husker** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 2:13 pm

If adding some water vapor to the air is not a problem (it may be a problem if you distill in an apartment, or in your basement), one can do this:

Tub of water. Submersible pump (aquarium or fountain). A towel suspended above the water tub. Small fan.

1. Pump the water to your condensor.
2. The returned water you put onto the top of the towel (to trickle back into the tub).
3. Run the fan (a tiny fan is all you need), to blow some air across the towel.
4. Evap from the towel will keep the water cool.

Doing this, you recycle your water, but it does not heat up (much). However, you WILL add moisture to the air, and if doing this indoors, that may not be feasible.

H.

gerpud · Post by **gerpud** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 2:20 pm

I like your idea! I could be a good one if I could do that outside! By the way, this principle is called adiabatic saturation. Since indoor temperature and relative humidity are respectively about 25 and 50, the only possible drop of water temperature is about 5 degC. That's not enough, or I would need too much water flow = big pump!

speedfreaksteve · Post by **speedfreaksteve** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 2:27 pm

If you're doing it in an apartment you might be best off just using a garden hose connected to your kitchen tap. That's what I do in my house.

Also the energy used by a 12 volt pump would be insignificant compared to the power needed to heat the still.

rangaz · Post by **rangaz** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 2:38 pm

when looking around at the farm junkyard I found several cooling coils from refridgerative aircons. My idea was to run the hot coolant through it with a fan and then back into the circulating tank to reduce the size needed for the circulating tank. There would be plenty at scrapyards I'd imagine.

Stillhead · Post by **Stillhead** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 3:04 pm

In the lab we use a refrigerator with cooling lines running through it. Then a diaphragm pump pushes the antifreeze through the lines.

muckanic · Post by **muckanic** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 4:34 pm

You don't need a fan-driven radiator, and that in fact will most likely make the pump's job a whole lot harder due to the resistance of the narrow tubing. A 10-15 gall pail of water and a heat exchanger made up of about 30 ft of 1/2" copper pipe will do for an average sized still.

George McKree · Post by **George McKree** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 5:00 pm

yeah, muckanic is quite right, if dont have any super-oversized still, it should be quite sufficient to have a lot of water in the system, as it will take a long time for all that to heat up. You may try to put a stone or brick in the freezer over night and then just put in in your water container, I do it that way, and its more than enough (but i admit i got a smaller still) just make sure no dust or tiny crumbles comes off, as that would damage your pump