I have been recovering methanol for over a year now. I use my old appleseed 50 gal processor with a plumbers delight condensor. I originally used a HF clear water pump for circulating the glycerol but soon became dissillusioned with it. I replaced it with a Taco 007 pump. Both pumps ran extremely hot. I think this is because of the viscosity of the glycerin when it is below 150°F. When the glycerin gets up to temp of 190-205°F the pump is cooking itself. I found out that Taco pumps have a hole in the shaft to help cool the motor. Cooling the motor with hot methanol laden glycerol just doesn't sound like a great idea to me.
I want to maintain a flow of around 5gpm. I know I am not getting it from the Taco because it takes 45-70min to fill the appleseed from a 275gal tote that is higher than the appleseed!
My Taco dealer is recommending an industrial process pump.
Sounds like mucho dinero. I am going to call the industrial pump dealer he suggested but I wanted to get some feedback from this group first.
What advice can you give me?

bdubet
Why are you heating the byproduct to such a high temp. aren't you contaminating your methanol with h2o??. I don't see any requirement to go over 155f, 140f if you use vacuum. Tom

quote:

Originally posted by Biotom:
bdubet
Why are you heating the byproduct to such a high temp. aren't you contaminating your methanol with h2o??. I don't see any requirement to go over 155f, 140f if you use vacuum. Tom

If you're using a reflux column you'll get pretty darn pure methanol, we routinely get 98-99% up to temps of 260F. We stopped using a pump and noticed no difference in time or results. It depends on how much methanol you want to get out, we make soap from our glycerin so we take it up to 260F. If we ever build a better still ie not a 55 gal drum I'd like to incorporate vacuum to lower our temps

Easy!!!

Modify a SB Chev gear pump.



This one is my 24V collection pump but I have one the same with a 240V motor I use for transferring oil from my settling tanks to my processor. It is on a 1/4hp 1440 rpm motor and does about 10 gal/ min so if you needed less flow you could either T and loop the output and return or set it up with pulleys and a V belt to reduce the speed.

These pumps have nothing in them that could be heat affected and they were designed for pumping hot oil after all. yes, the shafts do drip... all of about 1 teaspoon per hour.
If you wanted to run the pump for hours, I'd suggest go to a 1/2 hp motor as I think the 1/4 on mine is a little strained but I don't run it long enough for the motor to get very hot.

The lovejoy couplers like the ones I use will stop any heat getting to the motor as the inner spider is some special oil resistant plastic so you could pump molten lead with these things and I don't think it would matter.

Being a gear pump the will self prime and are positive displacement so you have to stop the motor, you can't shut the flow off with a valve as you'll either blow the hoses or stall the motor. Restricting the pickup is also a no no.

The things are dirt cheap and all you need is to modify the inlet/ outlet and set them up with a motor and coupling.

Thanks, DCS.
It looks like the mod you are talking about for the inlet/outlet is simply opening up and treading the ports for 1/2" to 3/4" street els. Is that correct or are you able to open the ports enough to accept a 3/4" street el?

Have a look at This thread about modifying the SBC pumps.

I think the stock ports are about 3/* and 1/2. I block them off and cut a hole in the sides of the pump housing and weld on 1" fittings. It seems to make a big difference in the flow rate to what other people are getting. If 5 GPM is all you are chasing, Maybe the stock size ports would be fine!