@Bolverk said:
Alex this is my understanding of the SD dual column setup, but the video is like 4 years old so I'd imagine there's been more than a few updates.
Yessir. Quite a few upgrades since the first prototype went into service over at Stumpy's place.
@Smaug
Thank you very much for provided details! ofcourse I I know this video, I learned it literally few years ago, watched it several times on Youtube:) Grate Setup!! Respect!
Could you tell me please, are you still use to take off "heads" above the dephlegmator? as on the 2.50 min of this video.
I already refuse to take "heads" above def, as it highly depend of water and heat fluctuations, now I use this system (attached pic) below dephlegmator, in this case I do not depend of the water flow, temperature above def etc. the only thing i have to control is ratio of outcome reflux "heads".
Yes we are still allowing for heads to vent off past the top dephlegmator.
We have more than doubled the surface area in the top ( and bottom ) dephlegmator to help assist when cooling media flow rates and / or cooling media temps are not optimal.
Ah, that is very clever @Alex. Do you use a dedicated (heads) product condenser to cool your heads vapor?
@Smaug said:
Ah, that is very clever Alex. Do you use a dedicated (heads) product condenser to cool your heads vapor?
I use to return all heads back to the last plate (picture above) and take off heads gradually, so, my column consists of few pro-cup bubble plates on the top of them I have such system (we call it LON Liquid Outcome Node) and finally on the top we have deflegmator.
All heads vapours are condensed in deflegmator and returned on the LON plate, and I use to take out very small amount of heads, the rest reflux falling down to the Babble plates for re -evaporation, by this method I can control heads up to ABV 96.6 without adjusting deflegmator cooling and not depending of heat. only we have to use deflegmator as complete condenser.
Yes we have noticed that pulling product off of the second plate from the top does allow the very top plate to act as a helper / heads trap that manages condensed heads constituents and better prevents heads from entering the product stream.
So for example on the 30 plate spirit column, collecting product from plate 29 is a cleaner finished spirit compared to collecting from plate 30.
That is correct, for this reason I have 500mm 6" pipe filled with SS springs between deflegmator and liquid outcome node, all returned heads from deflegmator are remaining in this part for re-evaporation several times, as a heads trap, and waiting for their queue for outcome.
@Smaug said:
Alex are you collecting finished product as vapor and then condensing?
No, I take it out as liquid, but it is little bit hot abt 55-60°C and needs some cooling.
In this video I have tried to create system which is similar of Yours, it is only beginning of experiments, later on, I refused to take Heads above dephlegmators, on my latest version, I have taken Heads same way as Hearts but above the Heads Trap Part of the column.
Working on setting up the rectification column side to see what I can achieve with that, will likely be slower due to power restrictions. I want to be able to run my main still and the continuous 4" at the same time. We will see if it works out that way or not.
54kw seems pretty high, especially without having a very high reflux ratio. In fact, it doesn't seem like you have a reflux condenser at all on the stripping column.
Efficiency of a small scale steam generator is probably closer to 95%.
Direct steam injection in column bottoms is going to be less efficient than direct element in column bottoms, so that takes it probably closer to 90%.
Lack of larger/efficient energy recovery (Preheat or otherwise), pushing that down even further - 75% maybe?
Power consumption is actually fairly similar to my batch processing.
5 hours to strip 250g (50gph equivalent). My last rum strip yielded roughly the same stripped distillate volume (roughly 200 liters/52g)
145kw @ 1hr (Heatup) and 25kw @ 4hr (Full-out stripping, some minor passive reflux).
That gives me an average of about 49kw / hr.
Granted, this doesn't take into account efficiency losses on my dinosaur fueled steam, which would make those numbers a bit smaller on a comparison with electric.
I use 54 KW to drive my 8" stripping column and wonder if that is actually enough power for that column (working on adding another 9KW to make 63KW all in), I am working on better heat recovery to be able to push it harder/faster/better to see what it's max Capacity is . I have been getting 60 to 80 gph feed rates inconsistently depending on foam and feedstock. This is on a 4 plate 8" with procaps, i am also working on new drilled hole plate design for it to scavenge back the procaps and use them in my much needed taller vodka column.
I just ran the 4" with the same power setup because it was easiest to do and also to experiment and see how fast a 4" could be driven. It had only 4 4" drilled hole stripping plates and no reflux condenser at the top. It does however have heat recovery to push the feed all the way to 170+ degrees F so that was working well. What was hard was rigging up the 3 2" long condensers needed to cool all the vapor back down.
I am wondering about setting my 8" as the stripping column and then feeding that resultant vapor or liquid stream into a 4" Rectification column for continuous operation. From the latest designs it looks like 12" can and does feed a 6". But I am not enough of an engineer to figure the math to compare 8 to 4 vs. 12 to 6.
Half the diameter is 4x less area, and assumed as 4x less flow rate.
If your collected distillate is 4x less volume than your feed volume (or thereabouts), you could stack the 4" on top of the 8" above the feed and still be running balanced with the caveat being your reflux ratio - which will limit your speed by flooding at the top plates, especially if vapor speed is high enough (entrainment flooding).
Comments
@Alex this is my understanding of the SD dual column setup, but the video is like 4 years old so I'd imagine there's been more than a few updates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNff7gM8d1k
StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America
@Smaug, I haven't seen this one! Very nice!
I assume same principles on the 4"er?
Yessir. All of the circuitry is predicated upon the same process flow
StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America
Yessir. Quite a few upgrades since the first prototype went into service over at Stumpy's place.
StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America
Could you tell me please, are you still use to take off "heads" above the dephlegmator? as on the 2.50 min of this video.
I already refuse to take "heads" above def, as it highly depend of water and heat fluctuations, now I use this system (attached pic) below dephlegmator, in this case I do not depend of the water flow, temperature above def etc. the only thing i have to control is ratio of outcome reflux "heads".
Yes we are still allowing for heads to vent off past the top dephlegmator.
We have more than doubled the surface area in the top ( and bottom ) dephlegmator to help assist when cooling media flow rates and / or cooling media temps are not optimal.
Ah, that is very clever @Alex. Do you use a dedicated (heads) product condenser to cool your heads vapor?
StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America
I use to return all heads back to the last plate (picture above) and take off heads gradually, so, my column consists of few pro-cup bubble plates on the top of them I have such system (we call it LON Liquid Outcome Node) and finally on the top we have deflegmator.
All heads vapours are condensed in deflegmator and returned on the LON plate, and I use to take out very small amount of heads, the rest reflux falling down to the Babble plates for re -evaporation, by this method I can control heads up to ABV 96.6 without adjusting deflegmator cooling and not depending of heat. only we have to use deflegmator as complete condenser.
Ah nice.
Yes we have noticed that pulling product off of the second plate from the top does allow the very top plate to act as a helper / heads trap that manages condensed heads constituents and better prevents heads from entering the product stream.
So for example on the 30 plate spirit column, collecting product from plate 29 is a cleaner finished spirit compared to collecting from plate 30.
StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America
That is correct, for this reason I have 500mm 6" pipe filled with SS springs between deflegmator and liquid outcome node, all returned heads from deflegmator are remaining in this part for re-evaporation several times, as a heads trap, and waiting for their queue for outcome.
@Alex are you collecting finished product as vapor and then condensing?
StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America
No, I take it out as liquid, but it is little bit hot abt 55-60°C and needs some cooling.
In this video I have tried to create system which is similar of Yours, it is only beginning of experiments, later on, I refused to take Heads above dephlegmators, on my latest version, I have taken Heads same way as Hearts but above the Heads Trap Part of the column.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZQ9QPNIRGI
Oh dear,,,,that was a bit difficult to follow given my limited language skills lol.
Your English is closer to my Georgian than my Georgian is to your Georgian.
StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America
lol :D I'll make another video with English explanation
Hi all,
Here is the link to the dialed up and run on my 4" stripping column with max possible power. First video I have posted so hopefully it works.
Roughly I was able to feed 43 gph in and collect 9 gph out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqokF3Vl4Cc
Working on setting up the rectification column side to see what I can achieve with that, will likely be slower due to power restrictions. I want to be able to run my main still and the continuous 4" at the same time. We will see if it works out that way or not.
How much heat are you throwing at the system @DeltaArtisan ?
What kind of pump are you using?
StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America
54 KW from electric elements. Variable speed peristaltic pump from Cole Parmer.
Wau! 54KW, it is huge amount of power for 4' column
@DeltaArtisan may I ask you, how many stripping plates and how many upper distilling plates you have installed?
54kw seems pretty high, especially without having a very high reflux ratio. In fact, it doesn't seem like you have a reflux condenser at all on the stripping column.
Efficiency of a small scale steam generator is probably closer to 95%.
Direct steam injection in column bottoms is going to be less efficient than direct element in column bottoms, so that takes it probably closer to 90%.
Lack of larger/efficient energy recovery (Preheat or otherwise), pushing that down even further - 75% maybe?
BUT, that's still surprisingly high.
Power consumption is actually fairly similar to my batch processing.
5 hours to strip 250g (50gph equivalent). My last rum strip yielded roughly the same stripped distillate volume (roughly 200 liters/52g)
145kw @ 1hr (Heatup) and 25kw @ 4hr (Full-out stripping, some minor passive reflux).
That gives me an average of about 49kw / hr.
Granted, this doesn't take into account efficiency losses on my dinosaur fueled steam, which would make those numbers a bit smaller on a comparison with electric.
It's a little more than twice the heat input needed based on where we arrived.
Even more so compared to Mark at Gamblers Bay.
StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America
Answering a number of questions and thoughts here
I use 54 KW to drive my 8" stripping column and wonder if that is actually enough power for that column (working on adding another 9KW to make 63KW all in), I am working on better heat recovery to be able to push it harder/faster/better to see what it's max Capacity is . I have been getting 60 to 80 gph feed rates inconsistently depending on foam and feedstock. This is on a 4 plate 8" with procaps, i am also working on new drilled hole plate design for it to scavenge back the procaps and use them in my much needed taller vodka column.
I just ran the 4" with the same power setup because it was easiest to do and also to experiment and see how fast a 4" could be driven. It had only 4 4" drilled hole stripping plates and no reflux condenser at the top. It does however have heat recovery to push the feed all the way to 170+ degrees F so that was working well. What was hard was rigging up the 3 2" long condensers needed to cool all the vapor back down.
I am wondering about setting my 8" as the stripping column and then feeding that resultant vapor or liquid stream into a 4" Rectification column for continuous operation. From the latest designs it looks like 12" can and does feed a 6". But I am not enough of an engineer to figure the math to compare 8 to 4 vs. 12 to 6.
Half the diameter is 4x less area, and assumed as 4x less flow rate.
If your collected distillate is 4x less volume than your feed volume (or thereabouts), you could stack the 4" on top of the 8" above the feed and still be running balanced with the caveat being your reflux ratio - which will limit your speed by flooding at the top plates, especially if vapor speed is high enough (entrainment flooding).