I’m hoping someone might have a product suggestion to clean scorched heat transfer fluid from the inside of our wiped film jacketed reactor. I inherited the unit and have been battling it for the past month, clearly no one ever maintained it
It is an AGI Wiped Film evaporator hooked up to a Huber CC304 heating bath circulation thermostat. It had Huber SilOil Typ M40.165/220.10* in it which has been drained and I’ve been flushing with ethanol under heat (70C) at Huber’s recommendation (approx. 15-20 times now) with little improvement. The ethanol has cleared about 1/4 of the buildup towards the bottom of the jacket, but does not seem to be doing much to the rest of it.
Open to any and all suggestions at this point, I’d love to get it back up and running if possible - ideally without totally losing my mind.
It might take a long time but they make magnetic scrubber things that u can put on the inside of hard to reach places but allows u to use a magnet on the other side move the scrubber around
It might sound weird, but on some tougher build up on my glass reactors and rotovap balls, I used a solution of distilled water and salt. The salt acted as a scrubbing agent in those hard to get to spots. It’s worked well for me, not sure if practical in your circumstances, but thought I’d share.
When and if you do get that cleaned, carefully inspect the wiper blades for deformities or wear; will likely need replacement if that wasn’t already obvious to you.
Hopefully hes only having issues in the jacket, if theres scorching on the inside near the blades that means u def need to calibrate ur heat source temps or refilter ur oil b4 running it
what heat transfer fluid is it? It’s likely that it is some sort of silicone oil. So I would try to clean it with something non polar like heptane or toluene. But don’t put these in your recirculating bath of course
stated in the OP.
can I ask the highest heat this fluid is taken to? honestly burning silicone oil would seem a bit of a feat to me. we use it in like 8 different heating circulators (Hubers included) up to 180C with no effect on the fluid. the worst ive seen is a sssslight tint to yellow over the course of months, but no difference in performance, and definitely no charring or ‘burnt’ residue.
if it helps, SIL180 by ThermoFisher scientific is what we use, and it’s been a dream since we switched to it. never seems to degrade or need full replacement, more just topping-off once in awhile–and this is more due to the slight losses and drips involved in changing out circulators, maintenance etc, more than loss due to operation in the process.
but i agree with everything you’ve said. we use many thermal baths around 180C and we do not notice any charring ever, but sometimes the fluid goes slightly yellow. inferior fluids will go from colourless to brown eventually.
Is there any chance you’re seeing charring inside the distillation column, not inside the jacket? This is a far more common problem that can be solved by running ethanol through, then water, then ethanol again.
I have only tried ethanol so far, but I actually have an almost full barrel of acetone so I’m about to try that with MCT in between washes. I will report back, fingers crossed it does the trick!
I honestly thought about ethanol + salt, but wasn’t sure if the salt would mess up the heating bath? Also considered buying grunge off or something similar in bulk lol
I’m a she haha, but I can’t currently even see the blades well because the jacket is almost solid black. I’ll def check that once I get the jacket cleaned though. Thanks!
Oh dang, that’s a great idea too. I knew you guys would come through with some excellent advice, thank you! I’ll give that a try if the acetone and MCT don’t yield any results.
