This guy is ambitious and insanely practical. Fusing chemical, mechanical, electrical and embedded software engineering, his breadth and calibre of engineering work here is only surpassed by the irreverence and humour. Incredible work. This channel is officially my favourite on TH-cam in the 12 years I’ve been on the platform.
@@mstorgaardnielsen Probably the most important part. Having the time and energy to do this sort of stuff. Knowing that he makes all the same mistakes any of us would make, but manages to fight the ADHD urge to quit and work on something else.
Hey, a quick tip for your circuits: put a pull down resistor for the FET gates, not just the series resistors. Like 10k to GND, before the series 5k resistor. It ensures your switches and FETs are OFF when the Arduino is not actively driving those outputs, like when it is booting up, being programmed, etc. Floating gate inputs can be pulled active by touching them, blowing on them, or just looking at them real mean, so you know, some pull downs can save you from surprises.
I wondered about the pull down resister for the FET gate, but presumed that the Arduino was capable of pulling the gate voltage down. (Coincidently I saw a YT video a few days ago recommending the use of a FET driver IC, rather than logic level FETs). But I hadn't considered your warning about FETs being able to be turned on by static charge.
10k is overkill, usually 1M or so is fine because the gate has far higher impedance. Too low of a resistor vs the series resistor will give you a voltage divider at the gate. Also regarding the other points, it is best for equipment to "fail safe". Relying on pulldowns on the arduino (which are under software control) is not fail-safe. A few added pulldowns provide additional protection.
Just some feedback, from a petroleum controls engineer. Redundancy is meant to protect against failure mechanism. In your set up, the failure mechanism of the switches is its mechanical integrity. Therefore the switches should be staggered rather than both engaging. Similar to backup sump pumps. The back up only engages if the main fails and the well fills up with water. Also something to think about, power failure will turn off heater but not immediately relieve pressure. Consider something like a normally open valve for pressure release or rebuilt syringe set up to allow it to full open and pop off in the even of a power failure. Because ethylene us highly flammable with a low LEL, make sure any atmospheric release is well away from ignition source and ventilated. Cool build! It's interesting seeing a small scale batch set up, since I'm used to working with continuous full size units in the refinery.
I'm a software engineer, and from the first second it was mentioned I was like: have a "low" limit switch, or you in theory could start pulling vacuum on your system xD Don't just trust the code will execute correctly, rather inversly: assume it will do everything but you think it will :D
This guy, he can manufacture anything, he knows electronics, coding, mechanical assembly, chemistry and probably a lot of other useful knowledge. You are really someone I look up to.
become an Engineer and you never stop having to learn ... the more experience you get the wider your skill set will go ... for me from electronics to physics to chemistry t material science to aeronautical engineering to fluid dynamics and going further .. as you get older you find none of the engineering you are taught today is actually separate ... chemistry plays apart in electronics and physics and material science and aerospace and hydrodynamics ... even combustion and yes explosives .. myself I went to school to learn Electronics engineering computer engineering computer programming and computer systems analysis ... after school ... well Physics Chemistry aeronautical engineering ... geology fluid dynamics ... materials engineering which includes fabricating composites ... and Im am currently learning about EDM machines ... yes Engineers ... once you start your schooling you NEVER STOP learning more
secret with aluminum brazing is not flux, but using stainless steel rod (1.6mm 304 welding wire works well) to scrape and break up the oxide on the aluminum surface so the brazing rod material can bond - do this scratching when you heated up the aluminum to where when you rub the brazing rod on the surface, it starts to melt, then use the SS rod to scratch the surface while applying gentle heat to keep the braze liquid, but not too runny then you "butter up" the pieces to be brazed, that is apply thin layer of the braze rod to the surfaces you want joined before actually joining the parts, then heat up both parts and mate them, position them so that you don't need 3rd hand now to add more braze material and help it move around a bit with the SS rod, use heat gently, overheating will make the brazing material run and collect in low places, which isn't ideal using similar mass (wall thickness) is easier than brazing foil to a chunk of aluminum, matching and managing the temperature is the difficult part
@@spehropefhany that is not possible when using gas torch, nor even useful, because the oxide is there already on the aluminum, all you need is to disturb it for the braze to grab on to the bare aluminum, it is easy, sort of like soldering slightly oxidized copper wire, there flux helps, here it is mechanical and it isn't too tricky, just needs some getting used to, hardest part is keeping the temperature of the joing in the sweet spot so the braze doesn't run
I see a lot of mechE and EE tips, but not many ChemE tips, so heres some. I would crunch the numbers to make sure you're in "plug flow." Reactors like this are very efficient but only when run at a turbulent flow as it causes the gas to flow through as a plug and maintains a high reactant concentration for longer than something with more mixing. The other thing to check is how the thermocouple is measuring the temperature. You will prolly need to set the probe higher temp as the heat conducting will be lower at the center and as this is a very temp sensitive reaction if a portion of the pipe is too cool you will have the ether side reaction. But you also dont want portions too high, or you'll have the hydrogen side reaction. The heat transfer in this case is what will make or break your conversion. There are a lot of other factors like pressure drop and things that also affect the rxn conversion, but I think the temp control is what will be the most important here
On the note of ChemE, what all do you know about Gas-to-Liquids tech? Could these processes be done in a similar reactor? The things that mainly have me interested are Syngas to Methanol and/or Dimethyl Ether (DME) (Mainly for Fuel Use) I know things like Fischer-Troph or Methanol-to-Olefins exist as well, but if i remember correctly those start getting into Complex/Precious Metal Catalyst territory. (And fractional distillation, although that isn’t *too* horrible) (Someone mentioned Diethyl ether, which would be neat for solvent use, but less something I’m a nerd for lol)
@ericlotze7724 Yes, they can. The general name for this style reactor is a PBR(packed bed reactor) or a PFR(plug flow reactor) they can be used for all sorts of different reactions but have whole coursed dedicated to how to predict their operation(I'm currently taking a reactor design course). I do believe that that is the type of reactor most commonly used for that purpose, tho. If you would like there are videos online explaining the general operation.
@@ericlotze7724What do you want to know about the syngas to MeOH process? If you want to use it as fuel, perhaps go a bit further via MtG (Methanol to Gasoline).
@@ericlotze7724Fischer-Tropsch catalyst commonly are iron and cobalt based, nickel and ruthenium are also used. The nitrates are deposited on the carrier substrate then the actual catalyst is produced in situ by heating in a stream of syngas, Ruthenium is the most active and at the lowest temperatures, but it's expensive. Another intriguing process is Reppe chemistry, but that requires balls of steel working with acetylene as feed stock and metal acetylide catalysts.
You can’t be in plugged flow with a catalyst like that. It’s turbulent simply because of the catalyst pellets. That’s really just an assumption you make to simplify calculations in reaction kinetics. The best way to increase conversion would be to get smaller pellets to increase the surface area, which could be practical because this is a DIY project. Of course by doing so you would restrict the flow so you’d have to find a good middle ground. He also could increase the size of his column to get better conversion, if conversion is that big of an issue.
Very impressive! There's no better feeling than pulling together CAD skills, 3D printing, coding skills, chemistry, and engineering anything your imagination can come up with. On top of that you made a video of it. Awesome 👍
You should mount the SSR on a heat sink with thermal paste. I've burnt these sort before from constant switching for a mains power heater bed, but after adding the thermal paste it stays cool and lasts much longer.
Aluminum passivates in air and especially in an oxidizing flame. Sanding the surface immediately before fluxing/heating can help remove the oxide coating and make brazing easier. If you can keep the flame off of the joint (or even better, if you can run a reducing flame with propane or acetylene) this also helps... and you'll get the best results if you can apply the filler metal the instant the temperature is right. Too much heat oxidizes your filler before it can flow into the joint (you can kinda see this happening at 3:20). Keep everything super clean and do what you can to get the temp exactly right. On the best day aluminum is still not easy to solder/braze.
Wow dude. You are one of my favorite DIY chem channels now. What a perfect mix of chem, fabrication, mechanics, and electronics. All reasonable for anyone with access to some basic tools can do.
Ethylene is a natural plant hormone that plays a significant role in the ripening of fruits. When fruits are ripe, they naturally release ethylene gas, which acts as a signal to initiate and accelerate the ripening process in neighboring fruits. This might be fun to try
You might also consider using PTC ceramic heater disks. They increase in resistance the hotter they get, so they inherently self-stabilize at a given temperature. Much simpler / foolproof.
Disks do not fit around tubes too well. Using square tubing for the reactor would introduce even more and worse temperature gradients. Just wrapping some resistive wire around it seems like of the easiest and cheapest options.
super awesome work!!! i was a chem eng student and i WISH we got to do practical stuff like this for coursework!! i'm really impressed with the control system scheme - super primitive and cheap compared to, well, an actual commercial chemical plant, but still does the job perfectly well (and looks pretty safe doing it!!) so glad this popped up in my feed, can't wait to see more
I would be careful with that beaker you used at the end there. It may look like it survived that couple hundred degree swing in temp, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's got a lot of micro-stresses and is ready to shatter when you least expect it.
I live far enough north that a solar + battery power system that is large enough for a cloudy week in the winter, will have excess power during a sunny week in the summer. When the batteries get full the options are to either electrically disconnect the panels, or send the surplus power to a big load. That big load needs to tolerate intermittent power. Liquifying air may become an excellent use for surplus power. In 2018, an engineer friend of mine was contracted to design the power control system for a crypto mining rig for a wealthy person's off grid home. Even with electricity that has zero marginal cost, crypto mining is stupid.
Just as a small note the analogWrite aka PWM signal for the SSR is likely redundant because SSRs won't turn off when you tell them to, instead they will turn off the next time it hits a zero crossing (120 times a second in the US). Since the Arduino library doesn't allow you to change the frequency of the PWM (without some some low level magic) it will probably just work like a threshold switch that turns off whenever the analogWrite value hits 0. Since there is a lot of thermal mass involved this is probably still fine. If you actually want to set the heater power you would need to chop up the mains sine wave, this can be done by detecting the zero crossing of the mains and then delay the turn on signal, similar to how light dimmers work.
@@ramous5182 Simple threshold switching (like it is acting currently) would probably be the easiest option. There is nothing really wrong with it I just wanted to point out that the analogWrite likely won't act as expected in this situation. The frequency of the PWM would have to be at last two orders of magnitude lower than the grid so the extra time would not have a effect (assuming you want to keep the effect below 1bit accuracy). This would also eliminate the PWM timers so the PWM has to be implemented manually, and the accuracy of a 3 second cycle time probably wouldn't improve that much without also going into PID control.
@@czechgop7631 I generally don't recommend simply rectifying mains voltage and switching it. When you work with DC Arcs don't extinguish as easy and since you likely want to filter it (so the noise from the PWM switching doesn't enter into mains) the capacitors will turn to a serious safety risk. There is nothing really wrong with a threshold switch which is how the system will likely act in this situation, especially when you don't work with a PID control loop. Just wanted to point out that it likely doesn't act as expected. You can also get pre-made PID modules making it easier.
@@Ether_Void Two things. 1. SSRs are contactless, so there's no arcs and 2. Since it powers only resistive heaters you really wouldn't need much if any filtering
Hot tip - try Harris AlBraze 1070 filler and AlBraze EC powder flux next time you have to do aluminum brazing. I've had a lot of success with this stuff making custom A/C fittings for a local vintage VW repair shop.
While I may never manipulate refrigerants with the expertise as you, watching your videos has taught me enough to understand basic differences between the kinds of heat pumps used in consumer appliances; i.e. some do a good job of moving a little heat across a huge differential, others do well at moving great amounts of heat across smaller differences of temperature - and both can be used as part of regenerative systems for the ethical home of tomorrow.
Try buying Polish spiritus. That's pure consumption grade alcohol. Sold in liquor stores as a base to dilute and make your own flavored liquors. 98% pure ethanol.
Dude i understand like 60% of what is being said but it's such a pleasure to watch your videos. These homemade systems have a unique raw touch to them, making it all the more interesting.
Good setup! The 96% ethanol is pretty much the highest you can get it when water distilling (the other 4ish % is water) anything higher than that is probably been pyridine distilled.
Supposedly Molecular Sieve can get you at/near Anhydrous. That’s what most chemistry channels have done. Also dug a bit on Amazon and the Sieve can be had for 20-50USD if i remember correctly. Also “stonylabs” or whatever the glassware company is also sells vacuum desicators (if you don’t go Vacuum Oven route, which I haven’t explored yet) *GRANTED* i an not an expert, so if you have more experience and all that and pyridine distillation is the way to go for some reason I don’t want to seem all wiser than thau lol.
youtube just recommanded me your channel, AND I HAVE BEEN BLESSED BY THE ALGORITHM, as an amateur chemist who never got the ball to actually put in practice what I learned, your channel is a dream come true!
This was one of the best videos I've seen so far. This is what youtube is for. Brilliant work my friend. There's something incredible about being so self sufficient as this.
At 11:22 something weird seems to be happening with the temp monitoring, and since this reaction (and its safety) depend so heavily on accurate temp control, I think it's worth checking that you don't have *ANY* electrical coupling between your switching electronics and the temperature sensing circuit. Just run a quick test with the thermocouple in some boiling water, while randomly switching power to your heaters, and make sure it keeps reading the same temp as another temp sensor in the same heat bath.
0:45 Open Source Polyethylene would be cool af though! Granted probably requires weird catalysts and a *Fluidized Bed Catalytic Reactor* or something like that then a pelletizer and all sorts of stuff.
@@DUIofPhysics i also need to see what is the “easiest” plastic catalyst wise. Polylactic Acid (PLA), and potentially some of the more novel (and more easily biodegradable) bio-plastics would be neat. Maybe once the Cryogen Saga is Over, the Plastic Saga Begins? Some Plastics are pretty spooky though, Polystyrene is probably off limits; the styrene is itching to polymerize sometimes it full on *explodes* into polymer form.
Awesome!!! I found a nitrogen generator that needs an $800 compressor so it has been sitting in my barn for about 2 years now. I love your videos and this video is so awesome. I am so psyched to see where you are going with this.....I got the feeling you were just showing off with all those super cool 3D printed thingy's..For all of us who need those thingy's or who do not have a 3D printer...I have 3D printer envy...I suppose being a chemical engineer I should have one of these setups on my kitchen counter...
A good way to get 100% pure ethanol is to find kleanstrip alcohol that uses ethyl acetate as denaturant and distill it with lye drain cleaner. The sodium acetate from the saponification reaction will be left behind as a solid and the ethanol will distill over near 100% pure with the bulk of the fuel.
It’s that the solid state relay is likely zero cross so the fastest you can PWM is a half cycle of AC. To do that you’d also need to know when the zero crosses occur.
I don't know if you did that, but to braze aluminium it's necessary to remove the oxide layer by sanding it. And you will need to braze it soon after removing the oxide, because just a few hours later the oxide layer is already too thick and prevents the solder from wetting properly. It is still not easy to braze tho..
Interestingly enough because of the reactivity of aluminium, I thought the oxide layer in is more of a binary thing, either it's there (and forms a set thickness) or it's gone (and will almost immediately form when exposed to air/water). Based on what you said, I suppose the growth is asymptotic towards a certain thickness but the initial layer is much thinner. Can you recommend approachable reading material on the topic?
Beautiful! Please consider using an electrical “inlet” (vs “outlet”) to receive mains power. That way you’re not handling a cord with live prongs (called a “widowmaker” in the electrical trade for a reason).
But.. those 'inlets' are ex ... pain... eee ;-) Well worth it too imho Edit - can often be salvaged/scrapped from old PC PSU units, and similar equipment. Rated at mains voltage, and can carry reasonable amounts of current. The old-style AT supplies often has/had both inlets and outlets, and if not available, often PC UPS's has both.
I think you misunderstood. That's a switched outlet for the compressor. Not a power input. That said using that thin wire and XT60 plug for a mains outlet is still rather sketch
@@dumle29 Yeah, I thought that too for a moment, until I looked again, and realized it was indeed the output to the compressor from the SSR (The inlet was the one he showed that gets hung from the 3d printed bracket on the side of the extrusion)
Was it called a widowmaker because of the live prongs or because they are often used to connect A/C circuits in ways that are insanely dangerous (like keeping a circuit live when the circuit breaker is off)
i love this. it makes me think about what would be built in a post apocalypse setting, machines like this to turn already processed materials into more necessary things would be very useful and are extremely interesting
Hyper space pirate Hass to be the last avenger😅😅. I am definitely subscribing. This dude is crazy.😜. Watching this guy ,I feel like I’m going to internally combust.😂😂.
This was awesome. Lots of applications of this as ethylene is a great starting chemical for all kinds of stuff. Also you could make smaller ethylene generators and market for use in cannabis greenhouses. Small amounts of ethylene will more than double the flower yeild.❤
The trick for welding AKA soldering aluminum is to have the aluminum clean. You may think it is but I actually has a small oxide layer. This is going to be removed by using a stainless steel brush or sandpaper. I've heard that you can even use mineral oil after this is done to prevent it from oxidizing again quickly. I've never had this problem as I've immediately soldered the aluminum. I believe that you will find it this helps tremendously. Keep up the good work bro
The aluminum brazing is controlled much easier if approached like soldering rather than brazing. Heat the intended material to be joined / sealed at a small distance from where you'll add the brazing rod, when the material is heated adequately to melt the rod then add the rod much like if you were to solder the joint. This will allow for far more conclusive results. Hope this helps your success as it did for mine.
It might be useful to find the expected range of duty cycles of heaters during operation and have the Arduino program stop everything and scream if they are exceeded. Otherwise, a physically detached or electrically failed (in the off-scale low direction) temperature sensor can cause heaters to operate at 100% duty cycle. (Also, it might be useful to find expected range of sensor inputs, so that sensors failed off-scale in either direction can be detected directly).
Good idea to have pull downs on the gates of your NMOS FETs. When they aren’t getting a signal from your arduino, the gate will be floating and could turn the FET on if any gate to source capacitance gets charge on it. Just a safety mechanism and good to always have a known state :) just make sure to size that and the gate resistor right so you have a proper gate voltage above Vth Also may wanna have a resistor in the path of the FETs since there may be quite a bit of current flowing when turning on the relays.
Man, I work at Braskem... The project I work on is optimizing the Green Ethylene plant - the only ethanol dehydration plant in the world (that runs on commercial levels). Awesome video!
Funny, I worked on the Phillips catalyst and you are actually right about the plastic chemistry obscurity. There are only 3 research groups including an industrial group actively working on understanding the mechanism of the Phillips catalyst. It is still very much a "black box" and it is a tough cookie to crack. I like to think we came close.
I would suggest purging the system with N2 or steam first. At 0 PSIG there is 14.7 PSIA or 1 volume of air in the system. As you accumulate C2= you have an explosive mixture of fuel and air as the system goes from it'sLEL to UEL.
I agree. I am trying to think what all else is a potential issue, but i do think doing a Process Hazard Analysis and getting real snobby on intrinsically safe design and stuff like that may be worth a look. Not that I’m expecting Radiography of the Welds or some shit, but stuff similar to the Backup Relays. I would need to look into detectors, but maybe make a System (and redundant Safety Instrumented System running a Circuit Breaker/Power Bar of sorts pre-device?) that uses detected Ethylene and/or Detected High Temperature/Flame to shut things down + trigger an alarm. How many cycles things can go before they break, what them breaking would do, and when to swap those parts and/or better alternatives is an aspect as well. Those Mechanical Limit Switches have me a *little* concerned, but could be worse, also a little uncertain on the Syringe, but otherwise seems fine. *And Again* i am not an expert (although i have done *sone classes*, still no full on Industrial Hygienist / OSHA inspector etc), and doing all this would be a bit overkill, but i think 1.) better safe than sorry 2.) Good Example for the Kids Watching 3.) Flex on Others with the Sheer Industrial Quality of your Design (as if it isn’t way more polished already!)
Also for those who don’t know, “Lower Explosive Limit” and “Upper Explosive Limit” are those terms. *Although* if you have seen that USCSB Video on TH-cam about that Paper Plant Explosion, I don’t *100%* Trust UEL Based Inerting lol
As a chemistry student watching these videos, the safety comments are just as valuable as the content of the video. I really appreciate yall taking the time to share.
On second thought. Since the final product will be used as refrigerant, I would consider drawing a deep vacuum on the system to remove both air and water. Water can form hydrates and plug the system at lower temperatures. You would need to break the vacuum with dried product or N2 (it's typically pretty dry).
I've been daydreaming of doing this since I was like 16 and I've made my own little "freezer" using propane. The condenser was even water-cooled. Went down to -50°C but I wanted cooler. Since then, I've speciaized more in electronics, designing PCBs, antennas, sensors, power converters, wherever electronics and physics meet... but this.. this! You're living my dream! :D Every year sometime I go down the rabbit hole of "let's see how to make ethylene" and when I saw your first video I downloaded it because that's how gold it is. This is even more gold :D Inspiration++ I definitely wanna do that sometime in the future.. Prolly as soon as I stop living in a (temporary) rented place.
_Please_ hook up some actual redundancy and/or safeties to this. My suggestion would be a second microcontroller on a small set of batteries, with its own set of sensors and a kill switch (or better yet, two in series). Keep its code as simple as possible, and have it set up such that if anything goes too far out of whack just kill the power to the entire thing. Have an output from this monitor that you just run at, say, a 10Hz square wave, that gets fed as an (isolated) input to the normal microcontroller so you know its working. Right now there are _far_ too many failure modes that'll result in a fireball with little or no warning. A few examples offhand: -> one of your boiler relays could stick closed -> your heater transistor could develop a short -> your temperature setpoint pot could develop an open, resulting it reading a max-value setpoint. -> your boiler thermistor or adjacent 100k resistor could develop an open, resulting in it reading a minimum temperature. (With the current configuration, one or the other should result in this. Not sure which offhand.) -> the clock on your arduino could die, resulting in it no longer executing instructions -> the I2C thermocouple freezes at a particular temperature Some of these can be mitigated with additional sensors and/or code... though remember the first law of redundancies. Any untested redundancy is likely broken. Also, I suggest taking a fire alarm and hooking it up as an input. Just hook it up with an optoisolator or somesuch. As a bonus, this means that you've got a fire alarm nearby the thing you're sending extremely hot flammable vapors through.
For the liquid trap. you could use use a transparent container with a discharge valve at the bottom. Add two lasers/sensors for high and low level of liquid so it can activate the valve when there's too much liquid. As for the catalyst pipe, I don't know how long it lasts for you but you could add a second one and switch back and forth for each time you have to do maintenance without disrupting the continuous process.
Add another resistor between Gate and Source of MOSFET, to prevent self opening transistor when arduino is offline Also better to use external pull-up resistors for your switches
I'm a geek, tinker with server equipment & oddball projects. Own a couple Pis and an Arduino but cant use em to anywhere near the effect you do. the skillsets & knowledge involved in this video alone are decently impressive, combining them more so. Props man, I hope I can do similar mad scientist stuff in my garage some day.
i have been seeing ur videos for such a long time, and the way u say home made and show a content worthy of writing a paper , yes... they have already been written but yes..... an overkill....... and wait for it... wait for it.... (I love it, yes i just love it)
Incredible. Absolutely incredible. I've wanted to build something similar for potassium chlorate production but don't have the energy or drive to do it
Quick tip for brazing aluminum: use map gas or some other hotter blend than propane. Aluminums low thermal conductivity makes it very difficult to braze and weld.
This guy is ambitious and insanely practical. Fusing chemical, mechanical, electrical and embedded software engineering, his breadth and calibre of engineering work here is only surpassed by the irreverence and humour. Incredible work. This channel is officially my favourite on TH-cam in the 12 years I’ve been on the platform.
Bro there's this guy who made a pyrolysis generator using microwave transformers turning plastic into fuel. He's doing this at 18 years old.
@@anthonyatienza3363 im going to need that channals name
And energy. He has the energy as well.
@@mstorgaardnielsen Probably the most important part. Having the time and energy to do this sort of stuff. Knowing that he makes all the same mistakes any of us would make, but manages to fight the ADHD urge to quit and work on something else.
Its a thin line between madness and genius.
Babe, wakeup! Refrigeration guy is back in the garage.
You really undersold the magnificence of that automation, and the time lapse. Barely showed it at all. The syringe auto-pumping was glorious.
i would use some soft metallic below since the seal on the syringe will fail one day.
He is playing Factorio in real life. The factory must grow!
The factory must grow!
No, not Factorio. It's more like Minecraft with the GTNH modpack.
my guy is playing greg tech irl
I really want to join his session and play together
@@samir7838fr fr GTNH ftw
Hey, a quick tip for your circuits: put a pull down resistor for the FET gates, not just the series resistors. Like 10k to GND, before the series 5k resistor. It ensures your switches and FETs are OFF when the Arduino is not actively driving those outputs, like when it is booting up, being programmed, etc. Floating gate inputs can be pulled active by touching them, blowing on them, or just looking at them real mean, so you know, some pull downs can save you from surprises.
I wondered about the pull down resister for the FET gate, but presumed that the Arduino was capable of pulling the gate voltage down. (Coincidently I saw a YT video a few days ago recommending the use of a FET driver IC, rather than logic level FETs). But I hadn't considered your warning about FETs being able to be turned on by static charge.
I think some models of arduino have internal pull downs
10k is overkill, usually 1M or so is fine because the gate has far higher impedance. Too low of a resistor vs the series resistor will give you a voltage divider at the gate. Also regarding the other points, it is best for equipment to "fail safe". Relying on pulldowns on the arduino (which are under software control) is not fail-safe. A few added pulldowns provide additional protection.
He already has a master security relay atop everything.
Never saw pins floating at Vcc.
1 k is better than 10 k
Just some feedback, from a petroleum controls engineer. Redundancy is meant to protect against failure mechanism. In your set up, the failure mechanism of the switches is its mechanical integrity. Therefore the switches should be staggered rather than both engaging. Similar to backup sump pumps. The back up only engages if the main fails and the well fills up with water.
Also something to think about, power failure will turn off heater but not immediately relieve pressure. Consider something like a normally open valve for pressure release or rebuilt syringe set up to allow it to full open and pop off in the even of a power failure. Because ethylene us highly flammable with a low LEL, make sure any atmospheric release is well away from ignition source and ventilated.
Cool build! It's interesting seeing a small scale batch set up, since I'm used to working with continuous full size units in the refinery.
I'm a software engineer, and from the first second it was mentioned I was like: have a "low" limit switch, or you in theory could start pulling vacuum on your system xD Don't just trust the code will execute correctly, rather inversly: assume it will do everything but you think it will :D
as a guy that lived inside a concrete block plant for years i appreciate the "noxious chemical plant" ambience of this video 💚
Takes me back to the days when I drove past an oil refinery on the way to work every day. Recirculate the air and enjoy the flashing lights.
This guy, he can manufacture anything, he knows electronics, coding, mechanical assembly, chemistry and probably a lot of other useful knowledge. You are really someone I look up to.
He's the irl version of the Factorio engineer. And I love it.
do you want to marry him?
I would 100%
@@xxx27987yes
become an Engineer and you never stop having to learn ... the more experience you get the wider your skill set will go ... for me from electronics to physics to chemistry t material science to aeronautical engineering to fluid dynamics and going further .. as you get older you find none of the engineering you are taught today is actually separate ... chemistry plays apart in electronics and physics and material science and aerospace and hydrodynamics ... even combustion and yes explosives ..
myself I went to school to learn Electronics engineering computer engineering computer programming and computer systems analysis ... after school ... well Physics Chemistry aeronautical engineering ... geology fluid dynamics ... materials engineering which includes fabricating composites ... and Im am currently learning about EDM machines ... yes Engineers ... once you start your schooling you NEVER STOP learning more
secret with aluminum brazing is not flux, but using stainless steel rod (1.6mm 304 welding wire works well) to scrape and break up the oxide on the aluminum surface so the brazing rod material can bond - do this scratching when you heated up the aluminum to where when you rub the brazing rod on the surface, it starts to melt, then use the SS rod to scratch the surface while applying gentle heat to keep the braze liquid, but not too runny
then you "butter up" the pieces to be brazed, that is apply thin layer of the braze rod to the surfaces you want joined before actually joining the parts, then heat up both parts and mate them, position them so that you don't need 3rd hand now to add more braze material and help it move around a bit with the SS rod, use heat gently, overheating will make the brazing material run and collect in low places, which isn't ideal
using similar mass (wall thickness) is easier than brazing foil to a chunk of aluminum, matching and managing the temperature is the difficult part
That sounds tricky
Hmmm. . I wonder if some argon flood of shielding gas would help.
@@spehropefhany
that is not possible when using gas torch, nor even useful, because the oxide is there already on the aluminum, all you need is to disturb it for the braze to grab on to the bare aluminum, it is easy, sort of like soldering slightly oxidized copper wire, there flux helps, here it is mechanical
and it isn't too tricky, just needs some getting used to, hardest part is keeping the temperature of the joing in the sweet spot so the braze doesn't run
@@dsfs17987 Thanks for the info.
just use zinc it is damm easy usually i use zinc from old used carbon battery
I see a lot of mechE and EE tips, but not many ChemE tips, so heres some. I would crunch the numbers to make sure you're in "plug flow." Reactors like this are very efficient but only when run at a turbulent flow as it causes the gas to flow through as a plug and maintains a high reactant concentration for longer than something with more mixing. The other thing to check is how the thermocouple is measuring the temperature. You will prolly need to set the probe higher temp as the heat conducting will be lower at the center and as this is a very temp sensitive reaction if a portion of the pipe is too cool you will have the ether side reaction. But you also dont want portions too high, or you'll have the hydrogen side reaction. The heat transfer in this case is what will make or break your conversion. There are a lot of other factors like pressure drop and things that also affect the rxn conversion, but I think the temp control is what will be the most important here
On the note of ChemE, what all do you know about Gas-to-Liquids tech?
Could these processes be done in a similar reactor?
The things that mainly have me interested are Syngas to Methanol and/or Dimethyl Ether (DME) (Mainly for Fuel Use) I know things like Fischer-Troph or Methanol-to-Olefins exist as well, but if i remember correctly those start getting into Complex/Precious Metal Catalyst territory. (And fractional distillation, although that isn’t *too* horrible)
(Someone mentioned Diethyl ether, which would be neat for solvent use, but less something I’m a nerd for lol)
@ericlotze7724 Yes, they can. The general name for this style reactor is a PBR(packed bed reactor) or a PFR(plug flow reactor) they can be used for all sorts of different reactions but have whole coursed dedicated to how to predict their operation(I'm currently taking a reactor design course). I do believe that that is the type of reactor most commonly used for that purpose, tho. If you would like there are videos online explaining the general operation.
@@ericlotze7724What do you want to know about the syngas to MeOH process? If you want to use it as fuel, perhaps go a bit further via MtG (Methanol to Gasoline).
@@ericlotze7724Fischer-Tropsch catalyst commonly are iron and cobalt based, nickel and ruthenium are also used. The nitrates are deposited on the carrier substrate then the actual catalyst is produced in situ by heating in a stream of syngas, Ruthenium is the most active and at the lowest temperatures, but it's expensive. Another intriguing process is Reppe chemistry, but that requires balls of steel working with acetylene as feed stock and metal acetylide catalysts.
You can’t be in plugged flow with a catalyst like that. It’s turbulent simply because of the catalyst pellets. That’s really just an assumption you make to simplify calculations in reaction kinetics. The best way to increase conversion would be to get smaller pellets to increase the surface area, which could be practical because this is a DIY project. Of course by doing so you would restrict the flow so you’d have to find a good middle ground. He also could increase the size of his column to get better conversion, if conversion is that big of an issue.
> "Hyperspace Pirate uploaded 18 seconds ago"
Shit, I'm here late
On my browser the video is 9 minutes ago and your comment 10 minutes ago 😂😂😂
@@danielheckel2755 that's just how enthusiastic I am!
6h late for me damn it
I'm SOOO late on following along with these videos. I barely have any loose refrigerant in my home. Gotta catch up.
Very impressive! There's no better feeling than pulling together CAD skills, 3D printing, coding skills, chemistry, and engineering anything your imagination can come up with. On top of that you made a video of it. Awesome 👍
You should mount the SSR on a heat sink with thermal paste. I've burnt these sort before from constant switching for a mains power heater bed, but after adding the thermal paste it stays cool and lasts much longer.
Aluminum passivates in air and especially in an oxidizing flame. Sanding the surface immediately before fluxing/heating can help remove the oxide coating and make brazing easier. If you can keep the flame off of the joint (or even better, if you can run a reducing flame with propane or acetylene) this also helps... and you'll get the best results if you can apply the filler metal the instant the temperature is right. Too much heat oxidizes your filler before it can flow into the joint (you can kinda see this happening at 3:20).
Keep everything super clean and do what you can to get the temp exactly right. On the best day aluminum is still not easy to solder/braze.
Yeah a lot of people just don't know how reactive aluminium is.
@@douro20 Yeah - - like that black aluminum dust - german aluminum in black powder.
I've had a 2-stage missing the silly sauce sitting around for years. I love you.
Wow dude. You are one of my favorite DIY chem channels now. What a perfect mix of chem, fabrication, mechanics, and electronics. All reasonable for anyone with access to some basic tools can do.
Ethylene is a natural plant hormone that plays a significant role in the ripening of fruits. When fruits are ripe, they naturally release ethylene gas, which acts as a signal to initiate and accelerate the ripening process in neighboring fruits. This might be fun to try
Thanks for this, just got off my 12 hour factory job shift and I'm stuck in complete deadlock traffic
You're quickly reaching Chemiolis levels of sophistication, but in the engineering world. Mad respect!
I know nothing about cryo science and machines like that, but i binge watch all your videos
I'd wager a guess and say thats 99% of the people here.
You might also consider using PTC ceramic heater disks. They increase in resistance the hotter they get, so they inherently self-stabilize at a given temperature. Much simpler / foolproof.
Disks do not fit around tubes too well. Using square tubing for the reactor would introduce even more and worse temperature gradients. Just wrapping some resistive wire around it seems like of the easiest and cheapest options.
super awesome work!!! i was a chem eng student and i WISH we got to do practical stuff like this for coursework!! i'm really impressed with the control system scheme - super primitive and cheap compared to, well, an actual commercial chemical plant, but still does the job perfectly well (and looks pretty safe doing it!!) so glad this popped up in my feed, can't wait to see more
I would be careful with that beaker you used at the end there. It may look like it survived that couple hundred degree swing in temp, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's got a lot of micro-stresses and is ready to shatter when you least expect it.
Pyrex is even more impressive after that demo.
He's making refrigerant
Hhhhhhhmmmmmm.... yummy..... 😋 💨💀
very good, i'm proud of you!
🤯thats so crazy
I almost finished the video and couldn't figure it out
no shit Dick Tracy
I live far enough north that a solar + battery power system that is large enough for a cloudy week in the winter, will have excess power during a sunny week in the summer. When the batteries get full the options are to either electrically disconnect the panels, or send the surplus power to a big load. That big load needs to tolerate intermittent power.
Liquifying air may become an excellent use for surplus power.
In 2018, an engineer friend of mine was contracted to design the power control system for a crypto mining rig for a wealthy person's off grid home. Even with electricity that has zero marginal cost, crypto mining is stupid.
"Excellent use" in what way? That it is a fun project? Absolutely. That you can play around with cryogenic stuff for a few days? Absolutely.
Just as a small note the analogWrite aka PWM signal for the SSR is likely redundant because SSRs won't turn off when you tell them to, instead they will turn off the next time it hits a zero crossing (120 times a second in the US).
Since the Arduino library doesn't allow you to change the frequency of the PWM (without some some low level magic) it will probably just work like a threshold switch that turns off whenever the analogWrite value hits 0. Since there is a lot of thermal mass involved this is probably still fine.
If you actually want to set the heater power you would need to chop up the mains sine wave, this can be done by detecting the zero crossing of the mains and then delay the turn on signal, similar to how light dimmers work.
I'd suggest just using a very low frequency PWM, seems easier than having to detect the zero volt crossing
Or rectify the input and get a SSR that can switch DC
@@ramous5182 Simple threshold switching (like it is acting currently) would probably be the easiest option. There is nothing really wrong with it I just wanted to point out that the analogWrite likely won't act as expected in this situation.
The frequency of the PWM would have to be at last two orders of magnitude lower than the grid so the extra time would not have a effect (assuming you want to keep the effect below 1bit accuracy). This would also eliminate the PWM timers so the PWM has to be implemented manually, and the accuracy of a 3 second cycle time probably wouldn't improve that much without also going into PID control.
@@czechgop7631 I generally don't recommend simply rectifying mains voltage and switching it.
When you work with DC Arcs don't extinguish as easy and since you likely want to filter it (so the noise from the PWM switching doesn't enter into mains) the capacitors will turn to a serious safety risk.
There is nothing really wrong with a threshold switch which is how the system will likely act in this situation, especially when you don't work with a PID control loop. Just wanted to point out that it likely doesn't act as expected.
You can also get pre-made PID modules making it easier.
@@Ether_Void Two things. 1. SSRs are contactless, so there's no arcs and 2. Since it powers only resistive heaters you really wouldn't need much if any filtering
Hot tip - try Harris AlBraze 1070 filler and AlBraze EC powder flux next time you have to do aluminum brazing. I've had a lot of success with this stuff making custom A/C fittings for a local vintage VW repair shop.
While I may never manipulate refrigerants with the expertise as you, watching your videos has taught me enough to understand basic differences between the kinds of heat pumps used in consumer appliances; i.e. some do a good job of moving a little heat across a huge differential, others do well at moving great amounts of heat across smaller differences of temperature - and both can be used as part of regenerative systems for the ethical home of tomorrow.
Try buying Polish spiritus. That's pure consumption grade alcohol. Sold in liquor stores as a base to dilute and make your own flavored liquors. 98% pure ethanol.
Everclear would also work I would think.
Hehe "Polish" spiritus 😂😅 im Polish
But it includes paying taxes I bet he can diy ethanol
@@wytrzeszczwytrzeszcz7739 anyone can diy ethanol. Water + sugar + yeast + wait + distile. And wham, you have ethanol. That's not the point. :-)
@@TheQade using algae you (afaik) can put AUTO into automation
Dude i understand like 60% of what is being said but it's such a pleasure to watch your videos.
These homemade systems have a unique raw touch to them, making it all the more interesting.
That USB extender is slightly cursed...
Great video as always btw, something about automating industrial processes really scratches an itch for me
Good setup! The 96% ethanol is pretty much the highest you can get it when water distilling (the other 4ish % is water) anything higher than that is probably been pyridine distilled.
Supposedly Molecular Sieve can get you at/near Anhydrous. That’s what most chemistry channels have done.
Also dug a bit on Amazon and the Sieve can be had for 20-50USD if i remember correctly.
Also “stonylabs” or whatever the glassware company is also sells vacuum desicators (if you don’t go Vacuum Oven route, which I haven’t explored yet)
*GRANTED* i an not an expert, so if you have more experience and all that and pyridine distillation is the way to go for some reason I don’t want to seem all wiser than thau lol.
youtube just recommanded me your channel, AND I HAVE BEEN BLESSED BY THE ALGORITHM, as an amateur chemist who never got the ball to actually put in practice what I learned, your channel is a dream come true!
This is a criminally underrated channel.
This was one of the best videos I've seen so far. This is what youtube is for.
Brilliant work my friend. There's something incredible about being so self sufficient as this.
At 11:22 something weird seems to be happening with the temp monitoring, and since this reaction (and its safety) depend so heavily on accurate temp control, I think it's worth checking that you don't have *ANY* electrical coupling between your switching electronics and the temperature sensing circuit.
Just run a quick test with the thermocouple in some boiling water, while randomly switching power to your heaters, and make sure it keeps reading the same temp as another temp sensor in the same heat bath.
0:45 Open Source Polyethylene would be cool af though!
Granted probably requires weird catalysts and a *Fluidized Bed Catalytic Reactor* or something like that then a pelletizer and all sorts of stuff.
Really would love to see this.
@@DUIofPhysics i also need to see what is the “easiest” plastic catalyst wise. Polylactic Acid (PLA), and potentially some of the more novel (and more easily biodegradable) bio-plastics would be neat. Maybe once the Cryogen Saga is Over, the Plastic Saga Begins?
Some Plastics are pretty spooky though, Polystyrene is probably off limits; the styrene is itching to polymerize sometimes it full on *explodes* into polymer form.
Awesome!!! I found a nitrogen generator that needs an $800 compressor so it has been sitting in my barn for about 2 years now. I love your videos and this video is so awesome. I am so psyched to see where you are going with this.....I got the feeling you were just showing off with all those super cool 3D printed thingy's..For all of us who need those thingy's or who do not have a 3D printer...I have 3D printer envy...I suppose being a chemical engineer I should have one of these setups on my kitchen counter...
1:06 this guy gets it
A good way to get 100% pure ethanol is to find kleanstrip alcohol that uses ethyl acetate as denaturant and distill it with lye drain cleaner. The sodium acetate from the saponification reaction will be left behind as a solid and the ethanol will distill over near 100% pure with the bulk of the fuel.
This channel just keeps getting better, the automation here is great.
I really wish this was recommended to more people.
It’s that the solid state relay is likely zero cross so the fastest you can PWM is a half cycle of AC. To do that you’d also need to know when the zero crosses occur.
I don't know if you did that, but to braze aluminium it's necessary to remove the oxide layer by sanding it. And you will need to braze it soon after removing the oxide, because just a few hours later the oxide layer is already too thick and prevents the solder from wetting properly. It is still not easy to braze tho..
He used flux afterwards which would strip off the oxide layer.
@@memejeff I agree, although a freshly sanded joint makes wetting better than just with flux. That is what I meant
@@cedricbrun4241 Ah, I see. Makes sense :).
Interestingly enough because of the reactivity of aluminium, I thought the oxide layer in is more of a binary thing, either it's there (and forms a set thickness) or it's gone (and will almost immediately form when exposed to air/water).
Based on what you said, I suppose the growth is asymptotic towards a certain thickness but the initial layer is much thinner.
Can you recommend approachable reading material on the topic?
I really like the way you dont assume we are stupid but assume we dont know what anything means
Also have you paid blood sacrifice to your drill? It looks a little grumpy
Awesome stuff right there!
Desktop chemical plant! Exxon is jealous!
Keep em coming!!!!
Way above my pay grade but you are a multi-talented genius. Your distillation columns shot looks exactly like my local Du Pont chemical site.
Beautiful! Please consider using an electrical “inlet” (vs “outlet”) to receive mains power. That way you’re not handling a cord with live prongs (called a “widowmaker” in the electrical trade for a reason).
But.. those 'inlets' are ex ... pain... eee
;-) Well worth it too imho
Edit - can often be salvaged/scrapped from old PC PSU units, and similar equipment. Rated at mains voltage, and can carry reasonable amounts of current.
The old-style AT supplies often has/had both inlets and outlets, and if not available, often PC UPS's has both.
I think you misunderstood. That's a switched outlet for the compressor. Not a power input. That said using that thin wire and XT60 plug for a mains outlet is still rather sketch
@@dumle29 Yeah, I thought that too for a moment, until I looked again, and realized it was indeed the output to the compressor from the SSR (The inlet was the one he showed that gets hung from the 3d printed bracket on the side of the extrusion)
@@dumle29 XT60 connectors (brand name ones) are certainly not rated for 115 VAC or 230 VAC.
Was it called a widowmaker because of the live prongs or because they are often used to connect A/C circuits in ways that are insanely dangerous (like keeping a circuit live when the circuit breaker is off)
this might be the coolest thing you've ever done on this channel thanks for the video
i love this. it makes me think about what would be built in a post apocalypse setting, machines like this to turn already processed materials into more necessary things would be very useful and are extremely interesting
first and foremost THANK YOU, havent even watched the video but I know my weekend is about to get better
Wow, the refining machine was already cool but the automation was insane. Absolutely love it!
Hyper space pirate Hass to be the last avenger😅😅. I am definitely subscribing. This dude is crazy.😜. Watching this guy ,I feel like I’m going to internally combust.😂😂.
This was awesome. Lots of applications of this as ethylene is a great starting chemical for all kinds of stuff. Also you could make smaller ethylene generators and market for use in cannabis greenhouses. Small amounts of ethylene will more than double the flower yeild.❤
He had me at automated
Thanks for the reminder that systems need to be worked on
This is way better than using thousands of bananas in a tank
90% of this content is over my head, but the advanced tinkering and humor is excellent always.
Whoop jackpot. Loving this
The trick for welding AKA soldering aluminum is to have the aluminum clean. You may think it is but I actually has a small oxide layer. This is going to be removed by using a stainless steel brush or sandpaper. I've heard that you can even use mineral oil after this is done to prevent it from oxidizing again quickly. I've never had this problem as I've immediately soldered the aluminum. I believe that you will find it this helps tremendously. Keep up the good work bro
The aluminum brazing is controlled much easier if approached like soldering rather than brazing. Heat the intended material to be joined / sealed at a small distance from where you'll add the brazing rod, when the material is heated adequately to melt the rod then add the rod much like if you were to solder the joint. This will allow for far more conclusive results. Hope this helps your success as it did for mine.
Great work! I'm enjoying a lot your quest for the LN2.
Your sense of humor is amazing. Never stop.
THIS is the content I want to see. Please keep making videos
It might be useful to find the expected range of duty cycles of heaters during operation and have the Arduino program stop everything and scream if they are exceeded. Otherwise, a physically detached or electrically failed (in the off-scale low direction) temperature sensor can cause heaters to operate at 100% duty cycle. (Also, it might be useful to find expected range of sensor inputs, so that sensors failed off-scale in either direction can be detected directly).
This is definitely a failure mode to consider! Similar to those Cheap FDM 3D Printers that caused some fires.
Good idea to have pull downs on the gates of your NMOS FETs. When they aren’t getting a signal from your arduino, the gate will be floating and could turn the FET on if any gate to source capacitance gets charge on it. Just a safety mechanism and good to always have a known state :) just make sure to size that and the gate resistor right so you have a proper gate voltage above Vth
Also may wanna have a resistor in the path of the FETs since there may be quite a bit of current flowing when turning on the relays.
Honestly I thought it would be far more complicated but guess not, still having automated production of ethylene is massive win
These videos just keep on keeping on. I love it
How yes, new video dropped
The (refrigerant) factory must grow!
Man, I work at Braskem... The project I work on is optimizing the Green Ethylene plant - the only ethanol dehydration plant in the world (that runs on commercial levels).
Awesome video!
I love those heater bands.
Especially on a big column, you can really dial things in.
after seeing your video. You're an absolute genious
love the vertical chemical plant vibe
that last minute was a great bit of free advertising for pyrex. good video!
My favorite channel back
Funny, I worked on the Phillips catalyst and you are actually right about the plastic chemistry obscurity. There are only 3 research groups including an industrial group actively working on understanding the mechanism of the Phillips catalyst. It is still very much a "black box" and it is a tough cookie to crack. I like to think we came close.
Best channel on TH-cam fr
I would suggest purging the system with N2 or steam first. At 0 PSIG there is 14.7 PSIA or 1 volume of air in the system. As you accumulate C2= you have an explosive mixture of fuel and air as the system goes from it'sLEL to UEL.
I agree. I am trying to think what all else is a potential issue, but i do think doing a Process Hazard Analysis and getting real snobby on intrinsically safe design and stuff like that may be worth a look.
Not that I’m expecting Radiography of the Welds or some shit, but stuff similar to the Backup Relays.
I would need to look into detectors, but maybe make a System (and redundant Safety Instrumented System running a Circuit Breaker/Power Bar of sorts pre-device?) that uses detected Ethylene and/or Detected High Temperature/Flame to shut things down + trigger an alarm.
How many cycles things can go before they break, what them breaking would do, and when to swap those parts and/or better alternatives is an aspect as well. Those Mechanical Limit Switches have me a *little* concerned, but could be worse, also a little uncertain on the Syringe, but otherwise seems fine.
*And Again* i am not an expert (although i have done *sone classes*, still no full on Industrial Hygienist / OSHA inspector etc), and doing all this would be a bit overkill, but i think 1.) better safe than sorry 2.) Good Example for the Kids Watching 3.) Flex on Others with the Sheer Industrial Quality of your Design (as if it isn’t way more polished already!)
Also for those who don’t know, “Lower Explosive Limit” and “Upper Explosive Limit” are those terms.
*Although* if you have seen that USCSB Video on TH-cam about that Paper Plant Explosion, I don’t *100%* Trust UEL Based Inerting lol
As a chemistry student watching these videos, the safety comments are just as valuable as the content of the video. I really appreciate yall taking the time to share.
On second thought. Since the final product will be used as refrigerant, I would consider drawing a deep vacuum on the system to remove both air and water. Water can form hydrates and plug the system at lower temperatures. You would need to break the vacuum with dried product or N2 (it's typically pretty dry).
This channel is my favorite thing
A mini automated chemical plant, thats brilliant, excellent work.
Someone is in love with their 3D printer 🙂
At 8:43 , not 100mm, it is an Arctic F12 fan, so 120mm High Flow one!
Used a lot of those, very good and quite cheap.
I've been daydreaming of doing this since I was like 16 and I've made my own little "freezer" using propane. The condenser was even water-cooled. Went down to -50°C but I wanted cooler.
Since then, I've speciaized more in electronics, designing PCBs, antennas, sensors, power converters, wherever electronics and physics meet... but this.. this!
You're living my dream! :D
Every year sometime I go down the rabbit hole of "let's see how to make ethylene" and when I saw your first video I downloaded it because that's how gold it is.
This is even more gold :D
Inspiration++
I definitely wanna do that sometime in the future.. Prolly as soon as I stop living in a (temporary) rented place.
_Please_ hook up some actual redundancy and/or safeties to this. My suggestion would be a second microcontroller on a small set of batteries, with its own set of sensors and a kill switch (or better yet, two in series). Keep its code as simple as possible, and have it set up such that if anything goes too far out of whack just kill the power to the entire thing. Have an output from this monitor that you just run at, say, a 10Hz square wave, that gets fed as an (isolated) input to the normal microcontroller so you know its working.
Right now there are _far_ too many failure modes that'll result in a fireball with little or no warning.
A few examples offhand:
-> one of your boiler relays could stick closed
-> your heater transistor could develop a short
-> your temperature setpoint pot could develop an open, resulting it reading a max-value setpoint.
-> your boiler thermistor or adjacent 100k resistor could develop an open, resulting in it reading a minimum temperature. (With the current configuration, one or the other should result in this. Not sure which offhand.)
-> the clock on your arduino could die, resulting in it no longer executing instructions
-> the I2C thermocouple freezes at a particular temperature
Some of these can be mitigated with additional sensors and/or code... though remember the first law of redundancies. Any untested redundancy is likely broken.
Also, I suggest taking a fire alarm and hooking it up as an input. Just hook it up with an optoisolator or somesuch. As a bonus, this means that you've got a fire alarm nearby the thing you're sending extremely hot flammable vapors through.
Really nice setup, and Wikipedia says it's the most synthetized organic compound in the world !
I'm impressed.
For the liquid trap. you could use use a transparent container with a discharge valve at the bottom. Add two lasers/sensors for high and low level of liquid so it can activate the valve when there's too much liquid. As for the catalyst pipe, I don't know how long it lasts for you but you could add a second one and switch back and forth for each time you have to do maintenance without disrupting the continuous process.
Add another resistor between Gate and Source of MOSFET, to prevent self opening transistor when arduino is offline
Also better to use external pull-up resistors for your switches
You should swap the cooler coil for a radiator/heatsink. It’ll be a lot more efficient and you wouldn’t have to use that giant 30w fan.
Huge shout outs to borosilicate glass, that beaker went through the biggest temp delta and took it like a champ.
I'm a geek, tinker with server equipment & oddball projects. Own a couple Pis and an Arduino but cant use em to anywhere near the effect you do. the skillsets & knowledge involved in this video alone are decently impressive, combining them more so. Props man, I hope I can do similar mad scientist stuff in my garage some day.
i have been seeing ur videos for such a long time, and the way u say home made and show a content worthy of writing a paper , yes... they have already been written but yes..... an overkill....... and wait for it... wait for it.... (I love it, yes i just love it)
Cant wait for the next video! Awesome project
Thanks for the video tutorial I needed ethylene for a fuel cell project
Incredible. Absolutely incredible. I've wanted to build something similar for potassium chlorate production but don't have the energy or drive to do it
Legendary stuff man.
Hello from Russia
love what you do
you're first ethylene production video was the first one of yours I watched.
Quick tip for brazing aluminum: use map gas or some other hotter blend than propane. Aluminums low thermal conductivity makes it very difficult to braze and weld.