this got me thinking

[powerdub]

If we could put the sap through our steam and pre-heat it to 77 degrees, theoretically we would get about 2 1/2 times the throughput.

hmmmmm..........[/QUOTE]

this was taken from brent's thread on Dow LP-4040 membranes. Is there any milk processors out there? who has heard of HTST. blast from my ice cream making days. seems like it should apply to sap. heat it to 70 before the RO and cool it to 38 right after. oh the wheels are turning, stay tuned.

[powerdub]

im going to reply to my own post to put these number into perspective. i normally run 1.5 gpm concentrate and 4 gpm permeate. If we apply the 2.5 more estimate from brent. then we come out with 3.75 gpm concentrate and 10 gpm permeate. thats 8.25 gpm or almost a 500 gallon per hour increase on my little ro. is this possible? these are hard to deny numbers and worth checking into. time to call my refrigeration engineer buddy.

[tuckermtn]

I wonder if anyone at PMRC has looked in to it? would certainly allow you to downsize your RO but would the heating/cooling processes take too much energy to justify? keep them wheels turning...

[danno]

Scott - your 4" membrane RO probably has a 3 hp high pressure pump? I believe those are only rated at 4 gpm or 240 gph. So, even with heating our sap, how do we push more than 240 gph throught the membrane without moving to a 5 hp high pressure pump. And if we are going to upgrade the HP pump, may as well move to 8" membranes.

[powerdub]

don't know danno. But......I want to try this and we will see what we see. I look at things like the steamaway and check valve spouts. We used check valves years ago only in a different way. I want to try something that will improve things and hopefully it will benefit us all.

[chipa]

I believe that Bascoms heats their sap prior to ROing.

[maple connection]

If you heat the sap to 70 in the small preheater would you have to cool it back down? Or could you send it right into the preheater that heats it to 175?
And keep the R.O. 20 gallons ahead in your overhead tank? Depending on your size of operation.