Home Made 4" by 40" RO - Flows?

[ACollette]

Good day.

I have followed some of the threads here and built my own 4" by 40". I have a Procon 240 gph high pressure pump that is fed by a 14 gpm jet pump. I have a 1 gpm flowmeter on my concentrate line and a 2 gpm flowmeter on my permeate line. When I test it with pure water, I seem to exceed my flowmeters. It appears that I am able to process about 5 gpm. Should I expect this to slow down with raw sap? I am able to achieve 250 psi on the discharge side of my membrane. I understand the math on the 240 gph results in a 4 gpm production - so I may have answered my own question. But thought I would reach out to see what other folks running a 4" by 40" achieve.

Thank you.19716

[bowhunter]

The membrane performance will be much different on cold sap. I don't know which membrane you have but a XLE4040 is rated at 2,600 gallons per day or 1.8 gpm of permeate flow at 77 F and 100 psi. At 250 psi it will permeate about 2.5 time as much on water at 77F. Temperature and average sugar content are huge impacts on performance. For example dropping the temperature from 77F to 35F reduces the permeation rate by 50%. You have to increase the system pressure to overcome that. As for the flows, if you're not recirculating any concentrate then the permeate flow and the concentrate flow will have to equal the capacity of the ProCon pump.

[Mead Maple]

Good day.

I have followed some of the threads here and built my own 4" by 40". I have a Procon 240 gph high pressure pump that is fed by a 14 gpm jet pump. I have a 1 gpm flowmeter on my concentrate line and a 2 gpm flowmeter on my permeate line. When I test it with pure water, I seem to exceed my flowmeters. It appears that I am able to process about 5 gpm. Should I expect this to slow down with raw sap? I am able to achieve 250 psi on the discharge side of my membrane. I understand the math on the 240 gph results in a 4 gpm production - so I may have answered my own question. But thought I would reach out to see what other folks running a 4" by 40" achieve.

Thank you.19716

Collette,
Fantastic looking build! I admire the attention to detail. I don’t mean to jack your thread, but I have intentions to build a 4”x4” myself over the summer. Could you talk about about your build and things you would change or keep as is? Thanks for the info !


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[OGDENS SUGAR BUSH]

Good day.

I have followed some of the threads here and built my own 4" by 40". I have a Procon 240 gph high pressure pump that is fed by a 14 gpm jet pump. I have a 1 gpm flowmeter on my concentrate line and a 2 gpm flowmeter on my permeate line. When I test it with pure water, I seem to exceed my flowmeters. It appears that I am able to process about 5 gpm. Should I expect this to slow down with raw sap? I am able to achieve 250 psi on the discharge side of my membrane. I understand the math on the 240 gph results in a 4 gpm production - so I may have answered my own question. But thought I would reach out to see what other folks running a 4" by 40" achieve.

Thank you.19716 definitely overkill with the feed pump, im running 2 xle4040s with a 330 procon and get 1.5/ 1.9 gallons on permeate depending on the temp

[Mead Maple]

Good day.

I have followed some of the threads here and built my own 4" by 40". I have a Procon 240 gph high pressure pump that is fed by a 14 gpm jet pump. I have a 1 gpm flowmeter on my concentrate line and a 2 gpm flowmeter on my permeate line. When I test it with pure water, I seem to exceed my flowmeters. It appears that I am able to process about 5 gpm. Should I expect this to slow down with raw sap? I am able to achieve 250 psi on the discharge side of my membrane. I understand the math on the 240 gph results in a 4 gpm production - so I may have answered my own question. But thought I would reach out to see what other folks running a 4" by 40" achieve.

Thank you.19716

Collette,
Quick question, what does this unit require you to have for power? I know when you get into the large size pumps you need more power so I'm curious if you're able to power this via maybe 2 separate 20amp circuits or you're needing more power than that?

[Ekrueger]

I have a similar question to this thread. I am building a single(for now) 4x40 XLE RO with a 330 gpm ProCon pump. To hit the 15% recommendation for the permeate, I should be at about 49 gpm of permeate. I plan to run around 38 gpm of concentrate to match my evaporator with recirculation. I planned the .1-1 gpm flow meter for the permeate and .2-2 gpm flow meter for the concentrate. This should be fine while concentrating sap, but what happens to the concentrate flowmeter when washing or rinsing? Do you still recirculate or not to clean it? Without recirculation, the flowmeter would max out and limit flow of the system.

[Clinkis]

I have a similar question to this thread. I am building a single(for now) 4x40 XLE RO with a 330 gpm ProCon pump. To hit the 15% recommendation for the permeate, I should be at about 49 gpm of permeate. I plan to run around 38 gpm of concentrate to match my evaporator with recirculation. I planned the .1-1 gpm flow meter for the permeate and .2-2 gpm flow meter for the concentrate. This should be fine while concentrating sap, but what happens to the concentrate flowmeter when washing or rinsing? Do you still recirculate or not to clean it? Without recirculation, the flowmeter would max out and limit flow of the system.

Keep in mind a 330 gph procon produces 5.5 gpm total flow so your going to max out your flow gauges as they have only a combined capacity of 3 gpm. I’d suggest .1-2 gpm on permeate and .1-5 gpm gauge on your concentrate.

[maple flats]

Just make sure your flow meters are in the correct range for sap. Your pump will not exceed the pump Ratings as you do a wash cycle. Even if the total pump flow in a wash cycle exceeds the flow meter, it will just lift the indicator to the top but it will allow some extra flow. However, I doubt that will be an issue, even in a wash cycle you adjust the pressure to force the flow thru the membrane, that back pressure reduces the flow.


Ekrueger, you seem to have the gpm and gph confused. The flow meters used on a maple RO will show gpm (gal per minute) not gph (gal per hour).

[Ekrueger]

Thanks for the responses. I did mistype gpm for gph for the pump and running flows. I think I will switch to the higher flow meter (1.-5.0 gpm) for concentrate. I didn't want to lose precision when concentrating sap, but I think the wash might be too big of a restriction without recirculation. In the wash cycle, I am not concerned if my real flow is 5.5 gpm and the meter is maxed out at 5.0 gpm.

[Luisc]

Good day.

I have followed some of the threads here and built my own 4" by 40". I have a Procon 240 gph high pressure pump that is fed by a 14 gpm jet pump. I have a 1 gpm flowmeter on my concentrate line and a 2 gpm flowmeter on my permeate line. When I test it with pure water, I seem to exceed my flowmeters. It appears that I am able to process about 5 gpm. Should I expect this to slow down with raw sap? I am able to achieve 250 psi on the discharge side of my membrane. I understand the math on the 240 gph results in a 4 gpm production - so I may have answered my own question. But thought I would reach out to see what other folks running a 4" by 40" achieve.

Thank you.19716
How is it possible to get 5GPM out of a Procon made for 4GPM? I have the same pump and only see 4GPM.