Hello Everyone,
Sincerest apologies for not responding months sooner, I’ve just learned the tracking settings for the forum need to be reset manually.
Jedd,
To properly size the cooling requirements for the condenser I’d need the following information:
Inlet Water Temperature
Outlet Water Temperature
GPM Flow Rate of the condenser water
I can give you a size range of the chiller system that is required –
For discussion purposes:
If you’re condenser will be using 20 gallons per minute of water with an inlet temperature of 70⁰F and an outlet temperature of 130⁰F , a chiller system with a cooling capacity of at least 2,200,000 BTU’s per hour is required. A chiller system in this size range will easily surpass six figures in cost.
There are a few ways to help lower the cost of the needed glycol cooling system:
Use an ambient fluid cooler This is a copper coil with aluminum fin for added surface area, the water coming out of the still (130⁰F) can pass through this coil prior to meeting the chiller system, typical coil sizing is for a 20⁰F TD (TD means the temperature difference between ambient temperature and leaving fluid temperature) So, if the ambient air temperature is 80⁰F the fluid exiting the cooler will be 100⁰F. Now the system will only require a 300,000 BTU per hour chiller system and be in a price range that will make a better return on investment when comparing the cost of using city/well water to cool the condenser to the cost of adding capacity to a glycol chiller and installing a fluid cooler.
[*]Use a ground source cooling loop
This is what Jimmy C.C. refers to.
[*]Increasing the holding reservoir size
By using a large cooling reservoir the cooling load could be applied to the reservoir overnight when the condenser isn’t being operated. This reduced the amount of BTU/HR that is required because the length of time can be stretched from 1 hour to up to 12 hours. The capacity requirement in the example above could be reduced to 183,333 BTU/HR but the size of cooling reservoir would have to be large enought to supply the flow for the entire period of running the still (20 GPM over 6 hours = 7,200 Gallon Holding Tank).
Hopefully this helps shed some light on the topic and if anyone is still interested please respond.
By using a coil of tubing buried in the ground at a predetermined depth and regulating the flow of the fluid through the coil the heat can be stripped from the water and into the surrounding ground, or into a pond that the coils are submersed into. There are extensive internet resources pertaining to this subject.