We are looking for a chiller with the largest cooling capacity with target operating temperatures between -20 and -40 F.
We are limited to single phase electrical supply.
We have looked at the Julabo A80, and have looked at the AI C-80.
As this is a substantial capital investment, we thought we’d ask the community about their experiences and preferences.
Advice, anecdotes and guidance appreciated.
Thanks.
Try touchsciece not sure if there UL listed if that matters m, bur there quality is on point and price is definitely in point . Tbere the only chillers i use
The DLSB-30/80 Recirculating Chiller certainly looks good on paper. We had not come across these in our search. We are going to try and dig a little deeper into these chillers.
Do you have a preferred vendor or contact? Just go through IG/FB?
Thanks for the lead.
We just bought a 3phase converter to run all our chillers. All the strong ones will be 3phase
@TheCrudeDude Very interesting.
Do you mind sharing more on your decision making process, final equipment selection, and experiences in implementation?
Does it look like you are going to see efficiency benefits in operation that will offset initial expenses, or do you feel the improved process control justifies the expense on its own?
Opening ourselves up to three phase means we’re going to have to do math to get appropriate sizing. Dammit. All of a sudden “biggest” might actually mean “too big”.
Decision ultimately was the size chillers we needed for our extractor and roto vapes where all 3 phase ( julabo fwp-91sl and fl-7006) .
Nothing will mess up your new lab like a undersized chiller so it is very important to make sure you are getting a chiller that is large enough for the job qnd unfortunately as they increase in size they basically are all 3phase and even 3phase 400volt on the biggest ones.
We purchased a huge converter from american rotary phase converters. To do 3 chillers it was about 6k for the converter
I contact ben thru ig or you can go on alibaba and type in touch science. I have very lil experience with other chillers aftwr watching my frinds spend thousands and they dont cone close to the rated temp. Huber and julaboo are also 2 very reliable brands alot more expensive but ive heard good things
Have heard alot of mixed reviews on touch science, mostly negative. But with a 2-3 month lead time on fwp-91sl I am going to order a -90 unit from them to try until the julabo comes in. They do have a 3 phase and single but Ben said the 3phase is much stronger and to get that over the single phase.
I have one of the touch science 30/80 chillers. Depending on what you are wanting it to do, they work great. It has a 10L reservoir and 35L a min flow rate. So, depending on what you want cold, it can work.
All the ones i have from them work great and go below the rated temps,none of mine are 3phase so my experience is limited
@Concentrated_humbold Thanks for the reply.
@TheCrudeDude We have gone back and forth on the brand of the chillers.
Julabo was where we were leaning initially, but we had a hard time justifying the cost against the advertised chilling of some lower priced alternatives (referring specifically to the AI C-80).
Without having something more to lean on that “Julabo is better,” it’s pretty hard to convince the guys holding the checkbook to spend the extra 40% for less advertised chilling power.
We’re looking keep jacketed columns below freezing through the contact time, manage storage tank pressures, and condense solvents at the end of recovery.
For the first phase of the build, our largest individual process load would be three jacketed 4x48 columns, in addition to a condensing column downstream of recovery.
Thanks for the first hand experience.
Touch Science may be a good unit for us to get the facility up and running.
We appreciate everyone’s help and guidance.
I would do some calculations for the heat load the recovery side will generate. Its going to take alot of chilling power for that. And I use to be a distributer for a.i I have not seen a -80 chiller all of theirs are -30.
If you just want to chill the columns and tank I think the Touch Science would do great
Is anyone using the touch science for chilling fermenters for ethanol extraction?
For your tank and columns for maintaining temp the touch science should do great, I use her to dewax and she maintains -74, I would like colder, but.
For recovery. You’re going to need to spend an additional $25k~ to handle the load. Or get a jacketed heat exchanger or condensing coil and use lc02. Unless you are running active. A polyscience 6860 or whatever the model is, that might be able to.
That julabo is going to be far more reliable than that AI, just saying. I have a julabo fw95 keeping my solvent tank cold.
I use hydrocarbons, don’t know what you’re intending on using
@TheCrudeDude “I would do some calculations for the heat load the recovery side will generate.”
We have a lot of flexibility on how we manage various parts of our recovery cycles, but won’t know any real numbers until we get up and running.
We can influence the process in a lot of ways, from how we handle the material columns (i.e. how cold do we freeze them before setting them up for collection) to staggering cycles, etc.
When we were only thinking single phase, we had the easy answer of “Biggest”. From there, we’d adapt our particular process to performance cooling capacity of the chiller to keep all of our processes within target temperature zones.
It makes sense to go with a Touch Science unit to shake out the system and get a better understanding of process times and actual thermal load. If we can’t stay withing our targets running three columns simultaneously, we’ll simple run one at a time while we gather data. From there, we’ll have a stronger understanding of work flow and real world efficiency (and profitability). If required, the system is flexible enough to make an upgrade down the line.
@TheCrudeDude “I have not seen a -80 chiller all of theirs are -30.”
Never seen one in real life, and they aren’t searchable on AI’s site. You can find links that bring you back to specifications on their site, and some vendors have them listed for sale online. That said, they may or may not exist.
@Dred_pirate: “For recovery. You’re going to need to spend an additional $25k~ to handle the load. Or get a jacketed heat exchanger or condensing coil and use lc02. Unless you are running active. A polyscience 6860 or whatever the model is, that might be able to.”
We are building around active recovery, with a jacketed heat exchanger down-stream of the pumps to condense vapor on it’s way back to the solvent tank. (We are also going to be running hydrocarbons.)
If our load is too high for our recovery rate and keeping our solvent tank pressures in check, we could add another chiller and run it directly to the heat-exchanger/condenser.
There are too many unknowns to predict performance. As mentioned above, we designed in a lot of flexibility to the system, and are confident we can change our procedures to adapt to the equipment. We might even find success just slowing down recovery to allow the chiller to keep up.
If you want a chiller to connect to the tank and have it handle recovery, just go passive. It’s faster and will save your extractors ears. And you won’t have a pump contaminating your solvent.
But.
Active with a pump, depending on pump, that polyscience is supposed to be able to make it happen, the next step will be a huber CS100, those will run 24,500.
Or get a jacketed heat exchange or coil and use lc02. And use chillers where else you want. Your Praxair guy will be able to get you a tank.
What system are you planning on using for extracts? Are you going to design your own? That will help you with what you need. Or contact a manufacturer that has them built already and you just have to connect the equipment you need
We’re using commercially available peer-reviewed extractors as our base units. We worked with our engineers to tweak them a little to try and improve system flexibility, efficiency and workflow. We won’t really know if any of it was worth it until we have it up and running.
We aren’t doing anything mind-bending.
On paper it looks good.
Hopefully it runs fast!
Huber has come up multiple times as a recommeded brand. Just searched the model you specified… nice cooling potential at -20C, but couldn’t find it’s electric load.
What does lcO2 refer to?