5″ Mini Liebig Condenser – Will it work?
I built a 5 inch Liebig condenser to try and cool off the 60 C distillate I’m getting during my stripping run. The ideal solution would be to incorporate a small Liebig like this one into the design of my next liquid management still head build. In my previous stripping run video I had small puffs of vapor escaping from the hole drilled at the top of the still head (the hole is there to prevent pressure from building up). In this video, I found that adding some stainless steel mesh to the very middle of my main, double coiled condenser, solved that issue. I reckon that the puffs were simply shooting up through the middle of the condenser coil with nothing to stop it. I am pumping in about 4,880 watts during a stripping run.
Let me know if you think this Liebig will be big and beefy enough to cool 60 C distillate off at about 25 to 30 C.
2 Comments
BobTheElectrican · August 29, 2019 at 1:49 PM
The controlling factor is going to be the volume and temperature of the water flowing thru the jacket, is it not? If the clearance between the inner and outer tubes is minimal, then you are fighting an uphill battle.
Admittedly, my setup is not as sophisticated as yours, but I combat the fumes/odor problem by punching a small hole in a sheet of aluminum foil to act as a cover over an oversize collection vessel and put my cooper collection tube thru it. If you want to wear belt and suspenders, the collection vessel can sit in a bowl half full of ice water.
Joey Joe Joe Jr · September 3, 2019 at 2:25 PM
I did the math on the cross-sectional area of the 1/4″ water in/out, and the volume difference between the 1/2″ jacket and the 3/8″ tube that the product is running through. There is more space between the jackets and tube than there is in the 1/4″ in/out. So the jacket shouldn’t create a bottleneck and keep the velocity of the cooling liquid high over the product tube, which is good because we want cooling water moving quicker instead of slower. I like your idea about the aluminum foil, I will definitely implement that during the next round. That should cut down on the smell. It’s possible that a Liebig isn’t going to cut it but we’ll find that out in future experiments. Thanks for the comment Bob!