Water Seal Vacuum Pump for Solvent Removal in a Thin Film Evaporation System

Hash and Stuff Distillation
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1

Hello all!

Looking to get assistance in troubleshooting a water seal vacuum pump that I am utilizing in a thin film evaporation system. It looks like the deepest vacuum I can achieve on this system is approximately 75-95 torr. I did a bit of troubleshooting and determined that my thin film system maintains its vacuum rather well for being as large as it is (YHCHEM’s YWF-20S).

However I’ve determined that my water seal vacuum pump has some sort of leak as it loses vacuum rather quickly. I’ve gone through and tightened down all connections but I’m still getting a leak. I believe that this leak is coming from the check valve on the system or its gaskets between connections…

My question is this; how deep of a vacuum can pumps like these generate? From some research I did, I discovered that they should (in theory) be able to reach the vapor pressure of the liquid seal (in my case, water). But in practice, can that vacuum depth be achieved?

2

I can help you. Hit me up. Send me model pics so I can search my catalogs for parts.

3

Isnt that 75,000-95,000 micron?

4

I believe so but this unit is simply used to distill out our ethanol from the extraction process to make crude. I wouldn’t need micron levels of vacuum depth for the unit to be effective (although it would be baller af).

5

Let me slide in those DM’s; give me a moment :slight_smile:

6

liquid ring vacuum pumps make great water heaters. The vac depth with these pumps is heavily dependent on the temperature of the water, and they can heat the water to near boiling pretty quick if not appropriately configured.
Do you have a single stage LRV? What temp is your water and what kind of seal loop configuration do you have set up? Some set-ups drain the water to waste, some partially recirculate (50%) , others are closed loop and require a chiller/HEX to remove the heat generated to maintain water temp.