membrane contactor (e.g. Liquicell)

[Brandon]

We received an e-mail from a user asking about membrane contactors. I asked them to start a thread, but I've been thinking about this for a while, so will start the discussion.

Does anyone have experience with these for water degassing?

Something like this: http://www.liquicel.com

See also: http://www.liquicel.com/applications/O2.cfm

On a homebrew scale, it's a bit expensive for an entire solution including the membrane contactor unit, vacuum pump, sweep gas and regulator, etc. But I've been intrigued by the idea for a while now.

[missiletech]

I bought a liquicel through ebay so I don't know if I have a functional unit but the particular one I found was about $100 and the sales rep I talked to yesterday said this model was designed for medical use and as such was about $5k. He mentioned there are breweries that use these and that one could easily get about 1ppm by a 1 scfm of n2 and a flow rate of about 10gpm. This is all an experiment for my pilsner/helles/kolsch or whatever you want to call it recipes... I just call them awesome.

[missiletech]

The breweries probably use the less expensive (but still not cheap) versions.

[missiletech]

[Weizenberg]

Their cheapest membrane filter suitable for degassing O2 is $1300.- The less expensive ones are for CO2

I'll boil + SMB

[missiletech]

Luckily (if it's functioning) I got mine on ebay for $100.

[missiletech]

I would also say, I know folks who spend way more than they need to just to get equipment that may not make significant contributions to their end product. It really just depends on what's important to each person and ultimately... if it works. In this case, we'll see!

[missiletech]

So I tested it today results as follows:

Tap water test:



First try using the liquicel using welding gas as a sweep and water is flitered:



Next, filtered no degassing:



Another degassed:



Degassed (o2) PH test:



Filtered water (not o2 degassed) PH test:



The rig in it's not so glorious arrangement:

[missiletech]

So now I'm not sure what I'll do next but I definitely am more focused on moving my impala outside. But I plan on doing some brewing in the near future. Kinda exciting getting a $5k membrane contactor that's pretty darn old for next to nothing and it works!

Here's a couple photos I had of the cel when it arrived and my current brewing arrangement:







Cheers!

[Brandon]