A week or two back I reported on the first test run of my home-made
stove top distiller. It's based on a 16 quart stainless stock pot with
the domed glass lid inverted so the water drips towards the center and
falls into a squat 3 quart glass jar that began life as a storage
canister. The jar sits on an aluminum base to keep it straight,
centered, and off the bottom of the pot.
The first run required 36 hours to make 3 liters, 1 liter was lost to
evaporation and 3 were left in the pot, from the 7 liters I started
with. It ran at very low heat, making 80-90 ml per hour.
For this run, I finished mounting a 3" diameter 5VDC computer cooling
fan just above the lid, to blow about 20 cf/m of air down and across
the top so as to keep the condenser surface as cool as possible.
It needed 18 hours to make 3 liters, 1 was lost to evaporation, and 3
were left in the pot. Obviously, it's now making about 160 to 180 ml
per hour. I also kept it on slightly higher heat than on the last run,
in order to keep up with the faster rate of condensation while still
not venting any visible steam.
So I can pretty much make 3 liters per day, allowing about a half hour
for set-up and initial boil-off of volatiles, and a couple of hours for
it to cool off before I decant the product.
This is to be compared with the Waterwise 1600 stove top unit:
http://www.waterwise.com
My cost so far is under $80 (US), versus $3-400 for the Waterwise, but
that unit can produce ~2.6 liters per *hour*, making it about 15 times
faster. This is not surprising considering they've got at least 5 times
the condenser area I do, and I'd wager the R value of sheet stainless
is much lower than my heavy glass...
I don't have any basis to compare the btu/liter efficiency, as I don't
know how much my burner is turning out, short of maybe measuring the
gas flow rate with a bubbler.
Having an external collection vessel would be nice, allowing it to act
more like a continuous rather than batch-mode device.
Hmmm... I wonder what I could do with a couple of cheap, lightly made
stainless steel fry pans with lids? A couple of stainless bulkhead
fittings and a ladle? More fans? Hmmm, indeed!
<GRIN>
Be well,
Mike D.
(...in mad scientist mode!)
[Mike Devour, Citizen, Patriot, Libertarian]
[mdev...@eskimo.com ]
[Speaking only for myself... ]
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