Graywolf
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That is an impressive plan you have in the making Graywolf. Have you started building it yet?
Just collecting parts so far but it is giving me a wet leg thinking about it.
Alas, I have a full plate completing my project list for the remainder of this year, as well as funding constraints, especially with it also being the season to be jolly and spend loads of cash on wifemate, kids, grandkids, and great grandkids out of personal mad money allowance.
I also have a partially completed Enabler compound fractionating still to finish, as well as a Mk IV Terpenator in progress, which are all part of a family of enterchangeable components, so far comprising the Lil Terp passive extractor, Mk IIIA & IV extractors, Enabler fractionating still, and Vapenator rotary evaporator.
Thanks for the good thoughts and input brother Squiggly!
You're right about condenser capacity, and I have yet to pull it off with vacuum distillation, using all three of our lab condensers and double cold traps in series, with cooling from pumped ice water.
I collect about 20% more solvent with my simple pot still, so it looks like I will have to build an adequate condenser. Any design thoughts that you have on that, would be appreciated. My current thoughts are an upper horizontal header, with "N" down tubes between it and a lower horizontal header.
I envision it sitting in a barrel of brine, with a single tube passing through the bottom of the barrel via a bulkhead fitting, and bleeding into a catch container, kept under vacuum.
How would you design your condenser, from a clean sheet of paper?
As for bumping, how much bumping are you seeing with a thin film under vacuum? I see it in our simple pot stills, without boiling chips, but haven't noticed it doing thin film vacuum purging in a Petri dish.
If it is an issue, a labyrinth intake inside the drum, should keep bursting bubbles out of the intake stream.
Good idea on the custom glass drum. I will check with our scientific glass shop for a price!
Borosilicate is a better conductor than 304 stainless, but it is a linear formula and we can always increase the delta T to get the same rates of heat transfer.
I suspected as much with motor speed, and the incremental cost for a variable speed motor isn't that much, so I probably ought to bite the bullet. It would certainly make process development and refinement easier. As noted, the test sled most certainly will have one.
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