Need help in calculating amount of cold water required

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around calculating the amount of cold water required to cool down 1000 liters of water from 121°C to 36°C using a cooling jacket with a volume of 200 liters. Participants explore the necessary flow rate and time required for this cooling process, considering various factors such as heat transfer effectiveness and system design.

Discussion Character

  • Technical explanation
  • Mathematical reasoning
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants note that water at 121°C can exist under pressure, suggesting that the cooling system may be designed to operate above normal boiling point.
  • There is a discussion about the role of glycol in the coolant, with some participants stating that it raises the boiling point and lowers the freezing point of the water.
  • One participant calculates the heat exchanger duty required using the formula Q = m Cp dT, providing specific values for mass, temperature changes, and specific heat capacity of water.
  • Another participant proposes a method to estimate the amount of cooling water needed based on the temperature rise allowed and the cooling requirement, suggesting a ratio of ten times the water as material being cooled.
  • Participants discuss the dimensions and characteristics of the fermentor and cooling jacket, including the heat transfer area and potential heat loss rates during the cooling process.
  • There are calculations presented for flow rates based on different temperature differentials, with varying mass flow rates suggested depending on the cooling efficiency.
  • One participant asks for more details about the jacket design, indicating that the specifics of the design could significantly impact the cooling efficiency and flow rate calculations.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express various viewpoints on the cooling process, with no consensus reached on the exact calculations or methods to be used. There are competing models regarding the heat transfer effectiveness and the design of the cooling system.

Contextual Notes

Limitations include assumptions about the cooling system's design, the effectiveness of heat transfer, and the specific properties of the fluids involved. The discussion does not resolve these uncertainties.

Who May Find This Useful

This discussion may be useful for individuals involved in thermal management, engineering design, or those working with fermentation processes in food and beverage production.

Krishna Swamy
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need to cool down 1000 ltrs of water from 121 Degree C to 36 Degree C.Jaket volume of fermentor is 200 ltrs.
How much cold water at 25 Degree C required ?at what flow rate?how much time required.?
 
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Krishna Swamy said:
need to cool down 1000 ltrs of water from 121 Degree C to 36 Degree C.Jaket volume of fermentor is 200 ltrs.
How much cold water at 25 Degree C required ?at what flow rate?how much time required.?

Welcome to the PF.

Water at 121 degrees C is not water... :smile:
 
berkeman said:
Welcome to the PF.

Water at 121 degrees C is not water... :smile:
It can be, if it's under pressure. It seems like the OP has some sort of cooling jacket which operates above the normal B.P. of water.

After all, if you car's engine is water cooled, the cooling system operates above ambient pressure so that the coolant doesn't boil over if its temperature reaches 100 C.
 
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...well, that and it contains a decent fraction of glycol...

Is this a one-time temperature drop? Beer/wine or pharmaceutical? Is the vessel pre-engineered? Stirred?

The tough part isn't the cooling requirement itself, but the heat transfer effectiveness.
 
russ_watters said:
...well, that and it contains a decent fraction of glycol...

While glycol addition to coolant will raise the B.P. a tad, that's not why it's used: It's to depress the F.P. of the water, at the other end of the scale, so the engine doesn't pop a freeze plug (or worse). :cry:

I took out my trusty steam tables, and a pressurized cooling system operating at 1 atm. gauge pressure has a B.P. of almost exactly 120 °C using pure water as the coolant. :wink:
 
mass in fermentor = volume times density. 1000 liters times 1 kg/l = 1000 kg.

exchanger duty required. Q = m Cp dT
T1 = 126 C
T2 = 36 C
DT = T2-T1 = 125 - 36 = 89 C

Cp water = 4.18 kJ/kg K

Q = 1000 kg * 4.18 kJ/Kg K * 89 C = 373,000 kJ
 
Cooling water supplied
M = ?
Cp = 4.18 kJ/kg C
T1 = 25 C
Limit water temp rise to 9 C
T2 = 34 C

m = Q / Cp / dT

Q = 373,000 kJ / 4.18 kJ/Kg C / 9 C = 9,915 kg

Let's say you have a 20,000 liter tank that is 1/2 full (10,000 liters of water) and you pump the water around in a loop.

These two equations reduce to m cooling water = liters cooled * (dT cooled / water temp rise) = liters cooled * (89/9)
So you need ten times the water as material being cooled for this assumption.
 
A 1000 liter wine fermentor (264 gal) is 41" wide (1000 mm) by 52. Tall ( 1300 mm)

So circumference is pi times D = 3.1416 * 1,000 mm = 3,141.6 mm
Height = 1300 mm
a = C * H = 3,141.6 mm times 1300 mm = 4,084,080 mm^2 = 4 m^2

If the jacket volume is 200 liters is 200,000,000 mm^3, then the jacket is 2" thick (49 mm)

size the exchanger. Q = U A dT log mean

U is complicated... So use a rule of thumb. Jacketed Water Dilute aqueouos solutions 200 W/ m2 C. Where w = J/s

Q/s = 800 J/s * dT. Tinit = 125 C. t final = 36 C. To. T= 25 C going to 34 C
So dT initial is say about 125 C less 30 C = say 100 C
So initial heat loss is about 80,000 J/s

Near the end it will be much slower at. 36 less 30 = 6 c
So about 4,800 J/s at the end

And we have 373,000,000 J to remove

So 22 hours using the slowest rate. 1.5 hour at the fastest rate. Slower rate will dominate so guess about ten hours.

Depends on U.
Thickness of the metal,
Effectiveness of the jacketing contacting the vessel.
If tank is stirred
Materials of construction
Etc, etc, etc
 
Last edited:
Can you elaborate on your culturing of hyperthermophilic organisms? This sounds like a fascinating area of research.

BoB
 
  • #10
Let's rethink the water side.

Got any details on the jacket design?

At volume 200 liters, I am assuming a 50 mm thick, 3,131.6 mm wide by 1,300 mm tall.

One pass? Spiral wound? Number and size of inlets and outlets?

If the best heat transfer rate is about 80 kJ/s, we can solve for flow. m = Q/Cp dT

m = 80 kJ/s / 4 kJ /kg C * dT

dT. m
10 C. 80/40. 2 kg/s
5 C. 80/20. 4 kg/s
2 C. 80/8. 10 kg/s
1 C. 80/4. 20 kg/s

So what size pump do we have available?

What kind of secondary cooler to reject heat to atm? Then we can have only a small water tank and reservoir
 
  • #11
Well 2 kg/s is 2l/s or 32 U.S. Gal/min or 120 l/min

So we be about 1 m/s (3 ft/s) and 0.1 bar (1.5 psi) / 100 ft of 2" pipe
 

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