Calming the corken T291

Hey guys.
I’m having some troubles condensing my gas after corken t291. We are recovering at 110f (first 3/4 of run then to 90f. After moving through pump the temp is 180f coming out of Corken). Water heater is 13kw, pump is another 7500-8000 watts. Right now we have a dslb 50/ 80 (10.5kw) plumbed to a 4m2 plate exchanger. Currently we can run pump at about half speed (30Hz) anything more overwhelms chiller very quickly.

So I need more condensing power I have a few options. I have a 5 ton portable ac I can use to chill the chiller. I also have a large ice machine was wondering if it would be effective to plumb a pre condenser (tube in shell) to a 55 gallon bucket w ice water to take load off chiller. Or should I just use a coil post plate exchanger w dry ice? I hate dry ice.

Lol thanks guys and hope everyone having a great weekend.

Ive used a 17cf freezer filled with water to chill tube n shell condensers. What about even a coil in the ice from the machine, i recover pure propane with just ice so id imagine either way would help to initially bring down the temp substantially

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How big of a system are we talking here? How many hours a day are you running the corken?

It’s a 40lb system. 275lbs of solvent recovery per run.

I used an pdxgold alpha wuf 150 before this that runs way better than corken. I could easily get 2-2-1/2lb a minute and only had to worry about battling the 2hp of additional power way easier to condense. Also keeping up w vapor production to feed the corken is intense.

Get a 2nd heat exchanger or jacketed coil and run tap water thru it as a 1st stage of cooling after the corken & before the plate exchanger.

The tap water really helps take the brunt of the BTU’s put out from the corken, allowing your cooling capacity to succeed thru the shift.

Now I know a bunch of ppl will say that the water usage is a problem but it is cheaper than powering an additional chiller, more convenient than dry ice & slurries. + it’s something you already have in the lab.

If you have a grow on site you could always pipe it to your RO>res tank instead of to waste if you can’t live with the water usage.

Cheers & good luck

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You need to cool the pump, as well as your vapor coming out of the pump. If you have a water source you can run through and drain, that would work too. You just want to remove some of the heat, making it more efficient

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:point_up_2: exactly

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I will plumb that up, great idea. I’ll run a RO600 to avoid any mineral deposits. I should be able to get 1.25 gpm. From my calculations it would take about 300 gallons per day, not sure how I feel about wasting that much water in a drought.

500 (btu multiplier) x 1.25 (flow) x 72 (degrees of temp change)= 45,000btu!?

Is this correct?

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if your ambient temps are low enough you can use a radiator vs water to waste

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i commend you for caring about the environment, but ur 300 gallons vs the 10 million used per day to grow blue diamond almonds…just to put it into perspective it takes about 1 gallon of water to grow 1 almond nut.

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Hmmmmm :thinking: IMHO, Seems like the smartest option would be to get another chiller.

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You can also run a glycol solution through a copper coil in a chest freezer for the low

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Get a big 1000 gal cattle watering stock tank and put something over it to keep the sun’s direct light off of it. Throw in a couple bleach or bromine tabs to keep algae at bay. That much water can absorb a whole lot of heat especially if your outlet temps are 80+*F above ambient temperatures.

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Don’t tell tech3:47 that. Who knows how long that response will be

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That ish will get so hot, so fast. It’ll help in the morning, but after an hour or so it won’t so much. Possibly a couple water chillers cycling through the reservoir. At this point you’re using so much energy for that dumb ass pump, you should have gone passive. This is where my argument always lands with pumps. Once you have to get that thing working that fast, you’re spending so much money and energy on a pump and you didn’t need and could have done without it, using that budget on something more useful.

I had a 500gal one for cooling an fw95 and if the water chiller went down it would get pretty damn warm in a short amount of time. In the beginning it wasn’t charged with enough refrigerant causing it to not work. The “maintenance guy” told me that it didn’t need to be charged and told me I was wrong. Then the professional hvac tech (maintenance guy) showed up and had to charge the unit and it worked, imagine that. He didn’t mention himself being wrong. Gotta love hvac guys.

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@Dred_pirate I was thinking use the 1000 gal tank for cooling the output stream from the Corken, not cooling a chiller (unless you have a really huge reservoir, any sizable chiller will get the entire reservoir hot and be less efficient the longer it runs). Probably should have said up above that this is just an idea for a stopgap, a $4-500 stock tank and a bunch of water and an aquarium powerhead to circulate is a whole lot cheaper than a chiller sized appropriately to do passive at that scale, plus a chiller that big probably needs a water tower too in order to get rid of all that thermal energy.

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So was I, I was just using the fw95 as an example of the water reservoir heating up rather quickly. If the vapors coming out of the pump are in excess, holy shit, 180f. I can bet that pump is putting out more than that from the body and will heat that reservoir in a matter of an hour or two. An eco 633 water pump will do 596 gal an hour. In two hours it’ll cycle that entire reservoir and I can almost guarantee that it’s going to be coming out of the pump over 100°f. By hour three that won’t do much help, that’s all I was getting at. City water or a nearby river (interesting enough lots of places do this, not buy a second chiller) would be best.

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So I was able to pre cool the hot solvent post pump and before the plate exchanger with a 10x24 condenser with cold water. Huge difference was able to run pump full speed no issues. Thanks again guys.

Out of corken 185f
Out 1st condenser 100f
Out of plate exchanger -7

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Glad we could be of help

:+1: