HD purity calculator: spot on

[stilly_bugger]

Headed over to the Home Distiller parent site tonight to use the calculators. I was blown away by the accuracy of the reflux column purity calculator.

Plugged in my

• column diameter
• packing height
• reflux ratio, and
• power input

and it churned out the purity I'm getting in my runs: 94.9%.

Column diameter is easily known: 50mm; packing height too: 1.2m. Power input is easy for those of us using electric elements: 2,200W for me. Only reflux ratio is a little harder to calculate. But I reckoned that if I take 4L/hr running 2,200W on a pot still strip and take off 1L/hr running the same power on a reflux run, then I've got a reflux ratio of 3:1 (4L up the column, of which 3 go back down the column and 1 is drawn off :think: ).

What was interesting to note was how you can make up for a lack of packed column height by controlling power input.

If I wanted to pull 95.2% (the most the calc goes up to, which isn't quite azeotrope :-?? ) I'd either have to add a 28cm packed extension to the column, or run the column at 623W (at the same reflux ratio).

Anyway, seems the numbers don't lie. :techie-typing: Over and out.