Looking for a small scale, low budget EToH recovery solution.
Would something like this do the job until I am ready to step it up?
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how is it heated?
you don’t want to put 20gal of 190 on a propane burner to get it boiling.
you want jacketed or baine-marie style. so you can heat from a safe distance using recirculating hot water (or steam for the big boys).
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hard to get enough watts for 20gal out of a SouVide.
Using a 4500W heater element, it was taking 12-14hrs to recover 12-14gal of solvent in RSOsie.
You’re not going to find a souvide at even 1/2 that wattage.
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Not with an attitude like that, you’re not.
Hot water tank heater elements work just fine if you need to run a very large sous vide bath, say something big enough for a whole pig. (Hot water tanks also make great sous vide vessels if you are 100% confident in your sealing procedure and materials)
Of course, you have to switch them somehow, and they generally need 220V or bigger. So switched by a big ol relay switched by something like a Dorkfood controller would work.
With that said, it’s certainly not the best or most efficient idea for solvent recovery.
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that’s how you wanna play huh?
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Well to tell y’all the truth I’ve ran a many of keg stills to reclaim on a propane burner. Could one put an internal element say 4500w in the keg to head with no flash point?
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I’ve seen it done without incident, but I have heard people say there could be a spark inside the boiler due to some kind of malfunction. That’s beyond my expertise to say whether those people are full of shit or not though, so I’d ask someone who has a solid understanding of exactly how those heating elements work to decide if it’s even possible to have something like that happen.
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Why not get a small used roto? And a used diaphragm pump and just use ice water in buckets instead of a chiller.
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the 5.5kw heaters are VERY robust as long as they are never run dry.
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Yeah running dry is gonna be a real issue. I know despite my best intentions, smoking a joint can get the best of me and my memory. Running it dry could have disasterous effects, the worst being an explosion, the least being you burn the s*$& out of your oil.
I’ve got a jacketed Bain Marie style fired with a propane burner that gets me 12L/h solvent recovery.
You also don’t need a “tower” if you’re distilling 95%, it’ll separate out the tails/water from the heart of the run. I’ve just got a 2" pipe as the column with no interference, you could insulate it if you want, but no reason to bother running plates or scrubbies, it’ll just slow you down.
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You’re not alone…many here will admit to it. It absolutely works, it’s just not a brilliant idea.
And for some reason I feel like I should be the voice of reason on this occasion.
It works, until something else fails…the condenser usually, because coolant flow stopped or dropped for some reason. Now the still is spitting hot vapor, and that propane burner becomes a major liability.
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Yup that’s why ya hire a baby sitter
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I like a hose or tube running to collection can also.
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Hehe yup, monitor every waking hour. Had a power outage the other day, had to sprint to shutoff the burner since the condenser wasn’t running.
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Whatever it takes. Because that’s what winners do!
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