It’s going to be hard getting really cold with an ac system. It certainly won’t compair with dry ice. You will need a cascade refrigation system to go that low.
Jesus. Chilling liquid to those temperates is above my pay grade. I wouldnt mind attemping to tear ac system and see how efficient 12k btu would be. I wonder if there would be a way to complete the build scalably without the need for dry ice
Creating a chiller that would simulate dry ice could not, or would not be practical with a single refrigeration system. The limitation in a refrigeration system is the refrigerant it is filled with. When you need to go really cold it becomes impractical to use one refrigerant to move heat. Systems that go super low have what’s called cascade refrigeration. The limiting factor is refrigerant. It can only operate in a cetain pressure/tempeure range. The cascade system allows both the refrigerants to operate effectively within their limits. For example The first refrigerant handles the system from +25c- -20c and the second works from -10c- -80c. A single stage refrigeration system would have a very high condenser pressure, and the evaporator would certainly freeze and be at a vaccumm. The compressor would not last long.h53011_Freon23_for_vlt (1).pdf (442.1 KB)
Here is some data for a vlt refrigerant, it was run on a Laboratory cascade system.
The best cheap option is getting 300psi dewars of liquid gas. Co2, n2 are both good options. No pumps required.
Like these?
How would one use them? I’m new to this.
Like this
So, you’d use the nitrogen to push the etho through the plant material in a vessel, then back into the same vessel it came from? And this chills it down to -50?
No, use it in a counterflow heat echanger against etoh, or use it in a column or process jacket. It gets way colder than -80c repspectivly -195c.
It lasts longer than dryice and can be cheaper in the long run. Once you use the liquid it will turn to a gas and evaporate. Make sure you have good ventilation where you use inert gasses, failure to do so would result in asphyxiation and death.
Thank you, again. You have been a valuable source of information for me. I’m am eternally grateful.
Hey no problem! I hope your 420 was merry and such!
I literally forgot it was 420 and was on the grind. But i did have a great time. Cut down my run time to 4.5 h instead of 9-14h. So it was unbeknownst to me the best 420 so far. XD
I hope yours was too.
It is critical to have appropriate pressure relief valves (PRV) in the jacket or heat exchanger before trying this. liquid nitrogen expands in volume almost 700x when it goes from liquid to gas.
You can also get nasty burns.
I haven’t gotten stuck to a -80 column yet, but I did bounce one off my forearm and it did leave a mark…
@soxhlet: Do you have links to an injection cooler appropriate for this trick?
Thanks, at this point I’m leaning towards other alternatives than liquid nitro. We’ll see where i end up. I found that since i started this many of my plans have been thrown out the window and/or altered. Definitely not at the finishing line yet.
I don’t use relief vales for nitrogen, just leave one side open with a section tube to direct the liquid outside. When you give it a blast of liquid you’ll see liquid come out the otherside. At that point you’ve filled the jacket. You can top it up every half hour or so. No regulator required, these tanks are low pressure until you use the pressure building loop.I don’t reccomend you trap any cryogenic liquids, as you said. …it’s a bomb
What is an injection cooler?
My bad. a heat exchanger on the solvent injection line. either hydrocarbon or etoh.
leaving one end open makes way more sense. thanx10^6
It as a good warning, although some will still manage to hurt themselves! Call it social darwinism…
Here is your counterflow!
So if i get a counter flow heat exchanger coil and hook my -30 chiller to the cold inlet/outlet and my etho to the warm inlet/outlet ran with the chugger pump continuously through a 32 gal res. Then i could use the immersion chiller right in the exchanger coil submerged in etho, i could potentially get the solution fairly cold? Also would add agitation in the res while extracting. Good idea?
You wouldn’t need an immersion coil, the heat exchanger is all that is needed.
I was hoping to get below -30 with adding the immersion chiller. My chiller seems to be on the struggle bus getting to lower temps.
