Quoting michael skinner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> has anyone tried a liquid liquid centrifuge.
>
> By continuously removing the dense gycerine you would drive the reaction
> forward requireing less methanol (the whole pont around the two step
> reaction)
>
> please see
>
> http://www.cheresources.com/centcontactor.shtml
>
> I think it would be possible to build something along these lines cheaply,
> take that old blender and put it inline with your reactor?
>
> mike
> in San jose ca
I've used centrifuges in the designs I've done "in my head". They do speed
up the process as you don't need to wait for settling to occur, which also means
that you don't need extra tankage. See my comments in the archive from a few
days ago regarding OFM mixing and centrifuges.
Before you start planning to "build something along these lines cheaply",
remember that these things are made of steel and spin at many thousands of
RPM's. Unless you're very good at machining and milling you could be making a
potential bomb, you only need something only the slightest bit out of balance
and the thing will tear itself apart spitting shrapnel everywhere. I've seen
pictures of when lab based centrifuges "go wrong" and it looks like someone
tossed a hand grenade into them..... I've also heard of an installation of
several CINC, that's the company that provided the info in the above mentioned
link - Kevin Costner owns it, centrifuges at a biodiesel plant here in Australia
where they couldn't get them to work properly. The plant eventually dumped them
and went for a "standard" Alfa Laval type of thing.
Don't let these comments put you off centrifuges. Do some web searchs and no
doubt you will come across second hand/excess/scrapped centrifuges. They still
might not be cheap, but then again, it would make a nice experiment.
Regards,
Andrew
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