I guess I meant how many gallons of sap do you run through per run before you clean it and/or change the 5 micron filter?
Printable View
I guess I meant how many gallons of sap do you run through per run before you clean it and/or change the 5 micron filter?
My normal runs are between 90-140 gallons so I replace after each run. However, if your sap is very clean and clear you can go two runs before replacing.
I've seen half size filters and housings that look just like the 10" Pentek except they are 5" instead of 10". Five micron filters are available and both the filters and the housings are a little cheaper. I would assume they are good for half as many gallons of filtering, so how many gallons are the 10" filters typically good for?
ok, I have assembled my end of season wash materials. its been a couple weeks since my last RO and all I did after that last one was rinse out with 15 gals of permeate.....am I still ok w/r/t the membranes to do the soap/acid wash tonight? do I need to do BOTH soap and acid if I have no sap left to test thruput with?
I can't answer your question but can you post the instructions for the soap and acid wash? I need to do something because my membranes and prefilter canister smell really funky after sitting for 4 weeks.
I have been lurking here for a few weeks and grateful to all who shared their experience with their small scale RO builds. I have a barrel evaporator and RO Bucket (RB10). The evaporator can make about 7-8 gph in ideal conditions and the RO Bucket performed pretty well this season. It produced about 5 gph concentrate and 5 gph permeate with a doubling of the sap concentration from approximately 2.5% to 5%. My RO bucket has the Aquetec 8855 pump, a filter and 2 400 gpd membranes in parallel. The bucket made access for maintenance difficult, so I plan to mount it to a board.
I've read this very long thread frontwards and backwards but haven't seen anyone who has shared an idea like the following:
I'm considering a concept for modifying the RO system.
The concept is to modify the RO to make 8% concentrate at 7.5 gph so I can RO right into the pan while boiling. Basically, I'd like to match the RO concentrate production rate to the evaporator boil rate to the extent possible. The unique aspect to this concept is to use a point of use ultra low flow point of use water heater (http://www.stiebel-eltron-usa.com/si...ini-mini-e.pdf) before the pump, but after the filter. The filter, heater and pump will have a flooded suction. This water heater can increase the sap temperature by about 40 degrees F and I'm hoping to increase the RO flowrate and concentration compared to my current setup to make about 7.5 gph at 8% concentrate right into the pan.
Do any RO systems heat the sap to improve RO efficiency?
Any comments regarding this concept modification would be appreciated.
I have read quite a bit in the last few months in preparation of getting a RO next season and have never heard of heating sap before ROed. In your application it should work fine since it is going right into the evap but in general even after sap is ROed you want it as low temp as possible before it heads into the evaporator to keep the sap as good as quality as possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by MDR Maple
Quote:
Originally Posted by MDR Maple
I've had hodorkskib's RO system for 5 or 6 seasons now. The main thing to consider is that increasing to a higher concentration %, leads to a decrease in concentration gph. You can get to a higher gph if you would like, but consequently a lower %. This year I did just that, I sacrificed higher concentration % to match the evaporator. The RO did take out about 40 to 45% of the water and could have gotten more removed, but it still shortened the overall time of processing sap in the RO and evaporating.
The strive to get maximum output is very commendable, but are you able to get the working 150 PSI for the heater thingy? Are you ready for fouling of membranes from the increase of heated sap? Just a couple of items I saw, but maybe you have addressed that.
Keep us posted!
SDdave
I agree with SDdave. I started with an RB15 this year that I needed to heavily modify..we average 3.5 sugar before RO, so getting to 8 was very slow as built...taking 2 to 4 is easier than 3 to 6 or 4 to 8. At those concentrations, there was not enough flow/pressure. The calculations will tell you that warmer is more efficient, and it is, until your flow rate begins crashing because the membrane is fouling. Up your pressure and flow rate, but don't heat over 40. Heating too much too soon also just means more bacteria/increased fouling rate. I tried various temps of preheated sap and while intially appeared promising, only meant having to stop and flush the system at full speed to unplug them. 40 seems to work very well to reach 60% rejection in a single pass. Preheat your concentration just before evaporating. With the added flow/pressure we can get from 3.5 to 8 at 13gph (about 5.75 concentrate). We also moved membranes into series, before the pressure/flow upgrade which helped because with 3 400s in parallel you really need to satisfy 1200gpd flow when going high concentration in order to avoid fouling.Quote:
Originally Posted by SDdave