Hi, I just need advise…
I’m pre-chilling my solvent tank in -50°F chest freezer with modified lid so the valves aren’t closed in the freezer…
My question: is there any benefit in this scenario to buy a jacketed tank? maybe for vaccume isolation or filled with glycol?
Thanks for any info!!
If you just filled the jacket with glycol or vacuumed it down it would effectively be a layer of insulation, slowing the heat in your solvent tank from interacting with the (presumably colder) environment in the rest of the freezer.
If you had a glycol jacket along with a low temp capable circulation pump and some plumbing in the freezer to give the glycol more surface area to release heat into the freezer it could speed up getting your solvent tank sufficiently cold, but you are likely to run into the cooling capacity limits of a chest-sized-freezer sooner rather than later.
Years ago I filled a chest freezer with a strong glycol-water mix in order to provide more hedge against the solvent tank warming up during runs, which worked way better than just open air, but after 2-3 runs the glycol mix had warmed up enough that it had to be left overnight to cool down enough to be useful again.
I only do one run a week, so it could work… My goal is to minimize dry ice consumption in the coil…
Inject as cold as possible and then recover without adding any new dry ice… So if it all gets consumed halfway thrue recovery, the tank will be cold enough to finish it…
Been there. Sucks. If the freezer MUST be your main remover of heat then you should do what @greenbuggy did. Use the freezer to chill it’s entire volume of antifreeze and pump the antifreeze around your tank. Tank not jacketed? Put it in a garbage can and pump your chilled antifreeze in and out of the can. I tried the tank in a freezer thing, wouldn’t remove the heat fast enough and led to hours of babysitting and incomplete recovery. Which is expensive. I will try the a/c chiller hack but going one step further I plan to also submerge the refrigerant condenser in a cooler and circulate its heat around my collection. also, don’t put butane/propane tanks in household freezers.
Also known as making a damn bomb!!
Your freezer is a source of ignition. Your tank is a source of fuel. Combining them in the same location a) is inefficient from a cooling standpoint (air is lousy for thermal transfer) b) fucking stupid from safety standpoint.
Get a pump, import your cold from a safe distance
Love ur topic , I had this idea to. I only extract outdoors so I didn’t think the fact that the outer part of the freezer isn’t explosion proof adds a huge safety risk but it’s obviously not as safe as having no possible ignition source anywhere near your tanks or cls . I got scalded when I brought it up here so I decided I’d try putting glycol in the freezer instead and pour that into my jackets ( or trash cans / coolers ) . Haven’t done it yet tho
My little chest freezer uses R600 as its refrigerant. Does that mean it’s safe around butane?
Ok… freezer isn’t main heath remover, the coil with dry ice slurry is. Freezer only prechill the solvent then it’s injected thrue a coil and recovered with the same coil… And only if there isn’t enough of dry ice for all recovery will the freezer “help” to finish it.
I don’t even want to say that i have my old nonjacketed tank in a freezer with a “hole” in the lid for almost a year now… But in outdoor shed without one whole wall, quorter mile from any house. The way I see it, is: if I keep the solvent in liquid form, then even if the valve or any connection is faulty nothing is going to leak.
I only use freezer as heath remover when I’m distiling solvent over night.
My question was, if there is any benefit, when buying a new tank for it to be jacketed…???
As long as it’s unplugged.
you’re probably correct, the explosion and ensuing fire are really the main health removers…
Again wouldn’t the dual coil jockey box idea work way safer than this? You’re better off using dry ice until you get a sufficient chiller, no?
So what pump can handel -50°C glycol mix or maybe ethanol? Also I live in central Europe…
If I will pump glycol from the freezer to jacketed tank, would be good to also use coil inside the tank? Or pump just in the coil and vacuume the jacket?
I can’t buy a chiller, they are crazy expensive here and I don’t want to buy something from China… Nobody will service, repair it.
Thanks!
I’ve been looking into one of these for a bit for etoh
Start here: Suggestions for diy glycol chiller fluid?
The pump linked above is NOT where I’d start. Works great for pumping extraction solvent. Too expensive for circulating chiller fluid…a pond pump will suffice.
See: I'm confused over pumping glycol 😅
Edit: and glycol is gonna get slushy around -40C
still cheaper than a chiller is where my mind was going. 
Even at -50°F?
At -50C the glycol is the issue, not the pump
When did you change units?!?
60% glycol to 40% water mix, should get to -63°F…
Sorry for the change, that was mistake… will use fahrenheit. My freezer can go as low -50°F.
Please use C.
Unless you’re aiming at -40 
Yeah, that’s what the charts say…experience says you’ll run into problems.
-48°C is the max that will freezer do…