New here, and relatively new to this industry as a whole. My company produces chiller mainly for industrial process application but we have sold a few units in this industry and almost everyone I have come into contact is very hush hush about the specifics of their application. I have read through several post here and seen chiller recommendations. I see that some of these units go as low as to -80°C, but the cooling capacity is so small, not even 1 ton of capacity! Does this even matter at all? What are you guys looking at when looking for a chiller?
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cooling solvent.
the bigger ones would be for cooling ethanol to -40 or -80C. (hundreds of gallons a day)
slightly smaller ones for chilling butane/propane to the same range. -
condensing solvent after evaporation. for stills, falling films, rotovaps, and hydrocarbon extractors.
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ones with integrated heating, because process temp is actually above ambient.
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@cyclopath all within the same chiller?
I just dont see how some of the recommended units here accomplish this with such limited capacities.
the Julabo Presto A80/A80t
1.1kW @ -40°C
0.1kW @ -80°C
and its 40K
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I don’t like the julabo much, for that reason. Tell me what capacity and price yours has
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@MagisterChemist that’s the thing, there’s not a one size fits all, because everyone has different applications or process.
I just quoted out a monster of a unit UCS-10LT-4 (1).pdf (344.4 KB) at 31K
Power Supply: 480V - 3Ph - 60Hz
10³kcal/h: 30,100
Btu/h: 119,446
Nominal Tonnage: 10 Tons @ -4°F / -20°C
Refrigerant: R404A
Compressor Type: 2x (13 Hp) Copeland Scroll
Plate Type Evaporator
Equipped with an Oil Separator and Suction Line Accumulator, Dual Refrigeration Circuits with a large 265 gallon capacity reservoir and pumping system assembled on a single skid for low ease of installation.
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In this case I’d be looking for a unit with good cooling capacity at -80
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what does good cooling capacity mean to you?
how many btu’s at -80°C
You called Julabo’s capacity small. You clearly had some notion of what would be better. In my case i’d say things in the 10 to 50 ton range are needed.
nope. one size fits none…
multiple processes. multiple scales.
and lots of folks trying to spec their chillers with no concept of thermodynamics…
(…and to hell with British Thermal Units. I rather use SI…which in this case is kW).
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that’s a world of difference, and to be clear you are saying 10 to 50 tons of cooling capacity at a leaving temperature of -80°C?
see: hundreds of gallons of ethanol at -80C…
it takes about 1gal of ethanol to “cover” a lb of cannabis, and maybe 0.2gal to extract it…so if I want to extract 10,000lb at day, with ethanol that I have evaporated off yesterdays cannabis I need to drop at least 2000gal from 37C to -80C.
if I could drop 10,000gal by 120K (or C) in 10hrs I’d be a happy camper for quite some time.
and some folks are happy doing 100lb a day at -40C.
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Yes, I’m not looking for one particular chiller, I’m looking for a range of chillers i can use to build labs of different sizes. For one lab 10 ton could be sufficient. For another 50 ton could be sufficient. And so on.
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@MagisterChemist Sorry to be so persistent but I like things to be clear so that there no misunderstanding.
The unit I attached to the thread is a 10 ton unit. But what a lot of chiller companies won’t tell you is that the are rated at said ton (i.e. 10, 20, 30 etc) at a 50°F / 10°C LFT = Leaving Fluid Temperature
The unit i mentioned earlier in the thread (and attached here UCS-10LT-4 (1).pdf (344.4 KB) ) is 10 tons at a LFT of -4°F / -20°C.
I can have the chiller customized for your need but I like to be certain were are talking about the same thing.
You would need 10 tons at LFT -112°F / -80°C?
Yes, I was referring to 10 tons at -80
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my back of the envelope says 50 tons would be more appropriate for
what does your math say?
I wasn’t telling him that he need 10 tons, I was asking if he was looking for 10 tons of cooling capacity at -112°F / -80°C
got that.
…and I was asking if you were able to spec a chiller not based on “tons at FLT” but on “gal of ethanol chilled to X temp in Y time”.
same words. different formatting.
make sense now?!?
I was expecting you to also point out that the majority of the cooling is done above -80C, so a smaller chiller might actually get the job done.
the issue is that many of the folks here know what they are trying to cool, how much, and how quickly, but have no clue how to get from there to “how much chiller”.
I thought you were trying to wrap your head around solving that…
my bad.
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10+ kW of cooling if it’s going down to -40C is enough for a 100lbs of LPG and several hundred gallons of EtOH—not simultaneously.
That’s my base number for chiller/general calculation. Based completely on heat capacity, heat of vaporization/condensing and time constraints.
You can achieve the same effect with a 1kW system but it’s gonna take 11x longer.
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I’d wager that last number is highly dependent on the insulation of your installation 
edit: or should I say the insulation of ones installation, as I would expect your install to be meticulously insulated.
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Indeed, through much effort and many hours yelling at my chiller to work harder, I find the only way to maintain process control on an undersized chiller is to meticulously insulate.
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