Let's Take this Outside

[patsroom]

I hope that bikemaster and FrankRizzo will join me here. I also hope that any one who wish to comment about something I have added in someone's else topic, that if the discuss causes a new tangent in direction that you will bring me back to here so we can continue with it. That way we can kept the others' person topic in a purer forum. Thank you...... Pat

I wanted to break out of Swedes' article "The Bucket Cell Adapter (BCA)" in the Chemical section of the forum so as not to cross contaminate his writing there. It was not my ideal to cause a change in direction of his work with a new topic in his forum entries.

 

So this is where the "Let's Take it Outside" came from.

 

With the discouraging words about the dilution of liquids in regard to my ideal on a dosing meter tank I have decided to attempt a experiment with the idea to see if the fluids would intermix if they were separated in one container suspended over the other.

 

Since the liquid would be of different specific gravity I will use a vinegar base water solution to represent the 16% HCI. As I will allow the tap water to play the part of the Distilled water.

 

The part playing the 16% HCI will have a pinch of blue food coloring added to a dash of vinegar with another larger dash of tap water of about 55% of the volume to complete the character of 16% HCI.

 

Now I must decide who will play the part of the lonely holding tank of water. The decision was so easy, I choose a clear plastic bottle which will play the part of the tube as well. Although the tube would be in the neighbor of about 1/4" ID to allow the fluid to drip the replacement water into the main holding tank of 16% HCI. I wanted the tube to have a bigger part in the play. So back to the water tank as it will be playing two character parts at once. The opening of this bottle is about the same size of a 16 oz. pop bottle.

 

And to play the part of the Acid holding tank the villain will be a clean olive jar (emptied of the olives of course). With the stage set and the play about to begin....The lights are growing dimmer.

 

CUT!

 

Okay, now that we know the players lets see how they interact with each other.

 

First let it be known that I did not measure any thing I just dumped, pour and squirted the materials into the holding tanks. The small jar of colored vinegar was filled only about 1/4th of the way so there would be room to add clear water to the mix at the start, this was to reduce the amount of the vinegar specific gravity.I took the plastic bottle fill to the top till it would hold no more placed it over the small jar of blue colored vinegar, flipped the bottle over and into the colored solution.

 

The water bottle was allowed to gulped air in as it spattered water into the tank of color vinegar creating the final mix.

 

This did cause a mixing of the two solution into the neck area of the the bottle filled water. But only about an inch. The color was at about 50 to 75% of the color of the lower jar. As luck would have it this plastic bottle was bigger around than the mouth of the jar holding the vinegar solution.

 

The plastic bottle sat on the lip of the jar with out moving so I left it as it was.

 

Now it has been 24 hrs. and the results are coming in.

 

From the looks of things it seems that the color has reached to about the 1 1/2 inch level. But what strikes me is that the color in the neck area that was about an inch that was first introduced has faded to about 20 to 35 percent level of color. The add area now colored is only about 1/2 inch more and is a light 5 to 10% in color dilute.

 

I do think that I will try the experiment again later but will use water in placed of vinegar the next time so that the specific gravity will be the same.I going to continue this first for another day or two before changing to the next test.

 

Edited December 6, 2009 by patsroom

[Ventsi]

I am sorry but was there a necessity to make the text so large and obnoxious. I literally say and mean it makes my eyes hurt,

 

And as to the core issue of this article, its a nice thought but would not contribute to the forum at all. I would think it'd be best to take up personal issues to PM's and once the squabble is over, post the information which is correct, rather than bark out loud and force users to have to scroll over needless posts.

Edited December 6, 2009 by Ventsi

[patsroom]

Sorry about that Ventsi. I hope the resizing helps. I first wrote the letter up in documents and then sent it here. I also re-colored the words to help you.

 

The issue of the article is not to squabble about a post but to exchange ideals outside of someone articles written else where, so to keep their contents closer to home. I find it distracting for two or more people to over run someone topic with a new one, which has little or nothing to do with their blog. I would have rather that they continue their discussion else where. If I am wrong for that then I ask that this whole section be deleted. The sooner the better as this is not for the purpose of being a fighting arena or an area to squabble about. It was meant to be a place to carry on about a subject I have brought into question in another persons' post. As for the title it was just a play on words. I just wanted to continue the study of dilution of fluids.

Edited December 6, 2009 by patsroom

[TheSidewinder]

1) Let's play nice in here.

 

2) Leave the moderating to the Moderators.

 

Continue the discussion, please.

[patsroom]

The fluid dilution mixture test is still on going. I have found that there is little to no action in it. I would have to say that after watching the grass grow that the fluid is losing.

 

I started the test at 1:30 PM local time 4 Dec. 09.

 

Today is the 6 Dec. 09, and the level of color has not moved any that I can see.

 

I think that the initial mixing of the solution occurred at the start as I introduced the two containers together. I must admit that I did handled the water bottles' intro into the vinegar water whether harshly as I let the bottle gulp air into replace the lost of water from its self.

 

When I am prepared to move to expand the test I think the next step will be to allow a small exchange of fresh water to inter the color solution at different intervals. This again will allow the bottle to gulp for air as it is losing water to the bottom container of vinegar/water. Once I do that then I will observe the results to see if it draws the colored vinegar/water into the fresh water container.

 

[bikemaster]

Patsroom you will be happy, I was wrong!

With some condition, your concept will work!

 

I get my old setting and put some water in it and I see a nice phenomen, an air gap form between the two liquide! This is why the acid and the water does not mix. (image help for explanation)

 

This is my set up:

 

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r261/bikemasterallxtreme/Lacrissdacidesemlangepas.jpg

 

The only condition is that it need to have an air gap between the two stages, if not, the liquide will slowly mix.Chlorate cell run can be easily over 2 week so even a slow mix will make a difference. For my setting, i use 3/8 tubing and it need to be 10 cm long (over the water level) to be sure that the two stage never touch. I was using 1/4 tubing before, but i don't know why, sometime the liquide stop falling.

 

I will be happy to see the final product went you will finish you pH dosing tank!

Edited December 7, 2009 by bikemaster

[patsroom]

I am glad that you made it here and I see that your ideal would keep the two solutions from mixing.

I been working on a test as well and the two solutions are in contact with each other. I truly believe that if the two liquids are of different gravities and the heavier on is on the bottom that they would not mix either. The opening of the bottle I am using is like about 5/8 of an inch, the liquid has not mixed any farther than when I first started the test. I glad to see you are testing this as well as it will help in the old ideal about using a drip system to dose a chlorate tank.

I am hoping to go in the direction of making a complete holding tank with a pump using a homemade solenoid that will deliver the solution in the proper amount over a time period. The PDF showns what I am thinking.

Dosing_Delivery_Concept.pdf

Edited December 7, 2009 by patsroom

[Mumbles]

They're going to mix eventually. Diffusion and Brownian motion will make it happen. By making the area they are connected as small as possible, it will greatly slow it down. I'd bet they could remain more or less separated over a few weeks of running. Most of my experience with this revolves around times we want the liquid to diffuse together, such as when growing crystals for chemistry.

[bikemaster]

The setup was made at least 6 mounth ago for, as you say, a simple dosing systhem for pH control. The problem was that without any timer, i will need a minimum of 100 amp in my cell...(i try slower driping, but the acid was no more driping. The base idea of this systheme was to give a constant driping rate over time to remplace the expensive dosing pump. (If not, at the start the much more acid will drip in one minute that in the end becaise the water level it lower, so less pressure.)

But, if we look at this problematic with and other angle, the gravity do all the job for us. We just need to find de right diameter of the tank, the right height over the cell and the dripping rate will change automatically. All these thing just need to be fit with yhe cell spec., and that give a very cheap ph control which vary with cell life.

 

The only problem will be that a lot of variable are there, but it is a possible concept.

[patsroom]

Eventually, yes the two fluids may indeed mix. But my hope is that the end of run in a chlorate cell would be reached before the fluids becomes one. Preferably the water would remain at full strength until the end was reached. If we could achieve that then we can control the dosing of HCI into the main chlorate tank. Then with the water being added over time, that would result in ramping the HCI level down from a 16% to 8%. This is what I am looking for.

[patsroom]

I started the experiment at 1:30 pm on the 4th of Dec. and today it is 5:30 pm the 7th. As sloppy as the materials were thrown together I have been very pleased with the results that I have seen. The mix level has not changed any after the initial 24 hrs. This is leaving me to the belief that if two separated liquids of different specific gravities were brought into contact as long as the lighter of the two was above the other. That there would be little to no cross contamination. This of course would be if there was no movement force from outside of the containers. (ie...Stirring the fluid manually). Starting tomorrow I will began a new phase by allowing the upper chamber to slowly be added to the color vinegar in small doses over a period of time. During this phase of the dilution of the color fluid I will watch to see if the upper water holding tank will be contaminated to the point where the two fluids are at about the same diluted color.

[patsroom]

Sent two small gulps of air up the neck of the water bottle. At 8:00 PM 7 Dec 09, it look as if they both carried some of the blue coloring from the neck area. There seems to be a slight hint of blue in the water container now. The color in the neck area of the bottle looks as if it is a little clearer than before.The vinegar water solution now looks as if it is on the verge of becoming a little translucent, it previously did not appear to be at that threshold.

At 9:00 PM two more gulps of air. I am tilling the plastic pop bottle to the side a little just to let a little air in.

The blue color in the neck area of the bottle is clearing up. There seemed to be no in take of the solution of the vinegar/water. The bluing of the clear water is from the cross contamination of the neck area. This area in the neck region was from the rough handling when setting the test up.

I can now see that the Dark Blue is starting to lighten up as it is being diluted.

After reading some of the others' postings I am a little worried. What would be nice is if someone would duplicate my experiment. This way it would cancel or validate my work. Either way I think that it should be done by someone else just to cross check this idea. It is very easy to set up and run and I have post the way I have done it.

Water_Bottle_Test.pdf

[patsroom]

I have ended the test of two dissimliar fluids and below in the PDF are the results. The color did not over take the clear fluid part in due to the fact that it may have been heavier because of the 40% vinegar in the lower container. The last part of this test was to allow the air to gulp in, not much of a control in it.

Now I will test to see if two liquids of the same gravity will mix if in the two container. After a few days I will again let the air inside in different stages.

End_of_Test.pdf

[Swede]

This sort of system is one of those cases where, if care is taken with the mechanical construction, I think success would be almost assured. Remember, even for a large tank we are talking about a dosage of only 5 to 15 ml every two hours. If the upper tube is extremely narrow-bored, the mixing would truly be almost nil. Picture a 1 (or even 1/10) ml pipette... in normal use, you suck up your solution, then release the air and allow it to drain. It takes quite a few seconds to even drain a single ml.

 

In use, the acid is drained until the tip of the pipette is exposed; the water flows until the pipette bore is enclosed and the pressures equalize. Everything is slow, small-bored, and I really think any mixing is going to be negligible. The primary point is that even if you get 20% mixing, the theory remains sound - the acid is diluted over time.

 

The only reason to execute this system is if you want 100% automation. Other possibilities include:

 

- using a normal HCl vat with no dilution mechanism, programming the timer, and accept the fact that early on, the pH is going to be 7.6, and at the end of the run, it'll be closer to 6.2. You are still bracketing the primary target of 6.7, and the efficiency will still probably be 15 to 20% greater than an uncontrolled cell

 

or...

 

- intervening on occasion. Every 2 or 3 days, depending upon your current, reprogram the timer to deliver a little less acid. You should be able to nail 6.7, +/- 0.2 or so. CE should be close to 85% to 90%+.

 

There's certainly no reason for hard feelings over any of this. It is an interesting physics/chemistry problem, worthy of discussion for us (per)chlorate geeks, and probably of zero interest to anyone not in home production. Let's have some fun with it!

 

One thing to consider - there is no point in even bothering with any of this unless you have a good timer system, and either a pump (peristaltic or dosing), or a gravity-feed solenoid valve system. There is NO commercial timer available from a hardware store that is going to allow the fine control that you need. I mentioned in a blog that the Auber Instruments timer at $33 is a great value, and allows control to the second, with ease. They also have some very inexpensive DIN temp controllers, PT-100 probes, etc. If there is interest, I can draw up a circuit that allows the timer to control a 115VAC outlet using a solid state relay, good to 15 amps +. The timer in its native state should control a solenoid valve with ease, as I believe the internal relay is good to 2 amps.

[bikemaster]

At first view, the idea of the pipette can be a good idea. Sadly it not work at all... Maybe it will prevent the acid to go up in the water, but it make an other problem. I have made some test and with the pipette, the water don't drop... I think it is because the air have place to break the water tention in got in the water tank.

 

I am sincerely sorry if someone have feel attack by what i have say. English is not my maternal language so some thing it is hard to know the difference between giving an opinion an making a certain word attack...Slowly but surely I will become better

[patsroom]

I am sincerely sorry if someone have feel attack by what i have say. English is not my maternal language so some thing it is hard to know the difference between giving an opinion an making a certain word attack...Slowly but surely I will become better

 

 

bikemaster, Let me first said that you have not hurt anyones feeling and you have not attack no one. What the problem is .... is the way I started this part of the forum. It is my fault that there has been a miscommunication and I must be the one to say I am Sorry to all that have misunderstood my intents. My humor lacks timing and is offense to some. Most likely because of the way and how I name this.

As you may remember I wanted to remove our discussion outside of the BCA by Swede to here. Some have thought that I was rude at by the way I title the new forum topic. It was just a play on works. The other thing was when I posted I did so from Document. The posting was carried over from document to this forum and when done it was in the #5 or 6 letter size as well as being in a med. blue coloring. This is why I believe was a long time member commented in that it being loud. Because of the title he may of felt I was being must rude to you and one other. So Please do not feel the need to say you are sorry as it is my fault and my fault alone.

Now to move on please continue to visit and reply to my topic as I find that it is very helpful to me...............Pat

 

patsroom

Edited December 9, 2009 by patsroom

[Swede]

At first view, the idea of the pipette can be a good idea. Sadly it not work at all... Maybe it will prevent the acid to go up in the water, but it make an other problem. I have made some test and with the pipette, the water don't drop... I think it is because the air have place to break the water tention in got in the water tank.

 

What was the pipette bore? There is a minimum beyond which the water will not flow. Too large, and excess mixing would be inevitable. The length of the pipette or tube would also affect the issue. I guess it's a trial and error thing.

 

I'll give it a shot today and see what happens, and maybe find a bore size that will work. One way to test would be to measure the pH of the upper water vat over time.

[bikemaster]

Pipette is a way way to small opening. Even with a 1/4 tubing can stop droping (I need to give a small hit to the tube for the droping continu. As was not thinking about this, but for sure, the tube lengh will make a good difference (my is between 15-20cm). For know, my best result append with 3/8 tubing. First, it never block cause of the water tention and the most important (for Patsroom project) if the tube is at least 10cm over the water level, it completly prevent the acid to go in the water tank. (it make an air gap between the two reservery) can send picture it you want to see.

 

I make a small experience to prove the concept and to prouve that the air gap really protect the water tank from become acidic.

First, I put water in my systheme (like on draw).

Secondly, I put sulfuric acid on the lower tank (don't like to work with HCl) the pH was under 1 (can not more precise...pH paper test)

The pipette let drop the water slowly and the systheme keep the water level at the same height in the acid tank.

One day later, the water tank lost 25% of it volume in water. I test the acid tank aand the pH was around 2 (Patsroom concept tumb up ). And after i test the water tank, the pH was 7!!!!

That seem to be a good prove that the air gap really protect the water tank!

 

It is sure that it just have run during one day, on sulfuric acid (fume from HCl will maybe make a difference), but H30+ travel very fast and pH around 7 is really sensible, so those test seem good.