Yttrium2
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Basic Questions
How can one tell how much electricity is needed to power a device, I’ve been looking at power banks and portable powpower
stationser stations for camping off the grid, but all this stuff about voltage load, amps mAh and Ah is a little confusing, its been a while
since my last automotive electronics class.
What would be needed to power a water pump of around 70 gallons per hour (this is what the condenser pump on United nuclear utilizes so I’m guessing
it’s about standard for condenser pumps for laboratory glassware)
Is a 100mm condenser enough to condense water, volatiles like naphthas, and steam distillate from a 100mL flask boiling?
I don’t want to chance losing steam distillate with my 25 ft 1/4 OD PVC helix.
Thanks
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Tsjerk
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An electronic device has a voltage and a wattage. A 1000 watt device uses 1000 watts, which is 10 ampere at 100 volts or 5 ampere at 200 volts.
70 gallons per hours can't be translated to an amount of power needed to power it. You need the wattage of the pump and the voltage it runs on.
100 mm is enough to condense things boiling from a 100 ml flask, as long as your cooling water is cold enough. 70 gallons per hour is overkill. I use
maybe 2/3 gallons of tap water an hour at 15 degrees for water with a 150 mm liebig. Most water condenses in the first 2 cm, the rest in the next two.
I can't get enough heat into a 250 ml round bottom flask to overpower the liebig running with this amount of water.
I know you always try to get away with the smallest you can find, but try to find a 200/300 mm condensor, it makes life easier and is more forgiving
when working with lower boiling stuff. Why do you want to condense naphtha?
[Edited on 6-9-2021 by Tsjerk]
Also, I hope you are not trying to connect a 25 ft whatever to a 100 ml boiling flask? Or did you mean 100 liter? But then what are you doing with a
100 mm liebig? Questions, questions...
[Edited on 6-9-2021 by Tsjerk]
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Fyndium
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Water pumps are generally rather low wattage. Mine had use of 2W and 5W, and from 220V you can calculate the rest. But, the energy is quite low, and
if you use level reserve, the pump does not need to pump almost any energy potential to the water, merely keeping it running through the circuit, as
pressure difference remains 0. These pumps are.. well, slow. I don't know how long it will take to fill a 10 liter bucket, but perhaps like 5-10
minutes or even more. Normal tap takes about 60 seconds. I don't know where they rip the literage of these pumps, apparently they can allow a free
flow of that amount at 0 pressure difference, but definitely not gonna happen with any tube that it fits with.
These pumps have been decent for me for most use, and I use 2L and 5L vessels as boiling flasks with overhead stirring and high power for strip
distillations. The distillate comes over hot, but in case I want to speed it up, I just put the receiver into another vessel filled with cold water,
and it usually does the job. The coolant water will get hot very quickly, 10L of 10C water will heat up to 50C in 15 minutes, so get that 100L
reservoir or be prepared to constantly change the water, perhaps even run it straight from mains, or if you live in climate that has a cold period,
use it as your benefit. Last winter I melted pretty decent amount of all the snow on my yard when using it to keep my coolants cool. 
I don't know if you are just doing this for a hobby, but I suggest, from experience, not to cheapskate on equipment, but do the painful thing and
invest to decent sized and amount of stuff to do the job once for good. You will, in the long run, end up paying everything twice or even thrice and
regret it later. I use the common equipment, because that's cheap, you can get spiral condensers of 200mm effective length at 24/29 sockets for 10€
from deschem and they are good, the coil itself cools, but as the outer wall is exposed to air, it will also act as a passive heat sink, and
contributes quite significantly to the effectiveness. I rarely use liebigs for distillations anymore.
For very volatile stuff, you want to immerse the receiver flask in cold, preferably salt ice cold water, and even after that you might wanna add
second reflux condenser to condense the very least of it. When I do vacuum distillations (of water), I have used a setup, that consists of spiral
condenser as main condenser, then a graham cooler that the liquid flows through and cools quite a lot, and then drips into the receiver flask, which
is immersed in salt ice water, and that flask is evacuated through a liebig condenser with this same salt-ice water circulating with a pump. For even
more volatile stuff, adding another graham after the liebig could be doable. Always, of course, there is a goldfinger before the pump. I actually
construct this setup from my table to the floor with a DIY jack, because it is so tall overall.
[Edited on 6-9-2021 by Fyndium]
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violet sin
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Is this to go with your DIY condenser and plan to distill naptha? You doing a steam distillation on plant matter? Do you plan on using the PVC
helix? Your desire to do this off grid, does it mean in back yard away from power.. or off in the back 40 so to speak? That is on public/not your
rental land?
If any of that's the case, you've a lot of details to figure out. How far you going away from your base. How much can you carry inconspicuously.
What will happen should this fail? Is this tantamount to arson and an incindiary device?
Gravity would be your friend if you can't power a pump. You do the work, you reap the reward. But can you carry that much ice? For only a 100ml
boiling flask, sounds simple. For any large amount of actual work this quickly gets cumbersome. As far as the power bank goes, with today's return
policies, I bet you could order, try and get a refund from if it doesn't fit. Would anyone have a problem with you testing a pump/power bank in the
bathroom for an hour with no chems or condenser? Water the back yard, idk, but you could see somehow.
There a lot to consider with the undefined details here. Paint a more concise picture before members answers will help.
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Texium
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Haha, "basic" questions. Basic only in the sense that they are lacking so many details as to be impossible to answer. I'll leave this open for now in
case Y2 decides to actually provide some more details.
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Fyndium
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I can only imagine what is the purpose of this operation.
People have used wheels to move things, and you don't have to carry any water, unless you live in a part of the world that lacks it. Also, if you go
really far off the grid, you can simply stash the stuff in multiple trips and run your operation.
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fredsci93
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On the water pump, I have a 95-gallon hour pump, it runs off 12v at 70W (~6A) if you are running your pump off a 12v power supply go for something
capable of at least 6A (Xbox power supplies are great and super cheap second hand) or you could run the pump off a 12v battery.
This pump is overkill for cooling a condenser (mine is for a vacuum), go with a tiny 2L/min (~1/2gallon/min or 30gallon/hour) aquarium pump.
The length of your column will depend heavily on external parameters like heating rate, flask size, and cooling capacity of your cooling liquid but in
general 100mm should be able to handle 100ml (so long as the heating rate isn’t crazy)
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