TOPIC:

Hello,

So I made my first batch of CDS today.

I used 50ml MMS & 50ml (50%) citric acid in the reactor chamber.
The reactor chamber stood in a pan with water in it, heated to 90 degrees celcius (I kept that temp for the entire process).

The reactor chamber was force fed air from an aquarium pump.

The receiver container was a tall, transparent wine glass bottle, filled with just under 500ml of distilled water that came directly from the 4c fridge.
This had a bubbler stone/diffuser.
The bottle stood in a bucket of ice water (to keep it under 11 degrees celcius).

From the bottle, a tube took the 'exhaust' out the window (this means I didn't have to use fans etc. Never smelled any chlorine fumes during the entire process).

So far, so good.

The water in the bottle did get yellow pretty quickly.
The MMS/CA in the reaction chamber went from dark brown to very light yellow/green in about 10mins or so.
Just to be sure, I let it continue for 45 mins, as I was expecting the MMS/CA solution in the reaction chamber to get completely clear, like I had seen in some videos. It never got clear. Just stayed very light yellow/green. (very little colour)

So, I thought I had made some decent CDS.
But once I measured it with the LaMotte testing strips, I found out the CDS I had made was around 700-800 PPM only.

I measured it four times (using various dilutions) to be sure. Its somewhere between 700-800 PPM for sure.

I'm disappointed. I read/saw that others are getting far higher PPM yields.

My MMS seems potent enough when I just mix it with CA the 'old school' way.
I don't think the problem lies with the MMS. Or the citric acid for that matter.

What am I doing wrong to get this low yield when making CDS?
I think I should be getting around 5x more Chlorine Dioxide than I am, right?

Could it be the cold water that I used? I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping the water at around 5 degrees celcius at all times.

Was the water in the pan (for the reaction chamber) not hot enough? It was 90c. That's "barely boiling" in my book.

Could it have been the bubbler stone? Was the receiver bottle being fed too much air?
I don't know how much air the aquarium pump pumps through, but its really not much. I got the cheapest one there was. I can barely feel it on my hand when I hold the tube to my skin to feel the air stream.

Any advice?

Thanks.

Hi Neilson,

When you use forced air, it will start stripping Clo2 out of the CDS receiver bottle if you keep pumping air after the bulk of the gas has come out of the reaction bottle. Once it gets light yellow you want to stop. You probably would have had a higher ppm if you had stopped at 10 mins.

The force air combined with heat may also have been a problem because practically all the gas is generated in just 10 mins. and with the forced air it may be pushing air through too quickly for it to be absorbed in the receiver bottle. I never combine heat and forced air.

In my forced air set up I use 275ml of mms and same amount of citric acid and pump into a 2000ml flask and a 1000ml flask after it. I am also use an air scrubber chamber after the reaction chamber, so that may have an effect because there is a 5% (I think) solution of MMS in that one. After about 45 mins. I get 3000-6000 ppm (after combining both receiver bottles) depending on how much you dilute before measuring.

I have the same setup Steve has here genesis2forum.org/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=16&id=9972&limit=6&limitstart=12&Itemid=66#10101 but my bottles are bigger.

Michael

Thank you, Michael.

So, would you advice not to use forced air at all, and just go with heat alone?

And then only as long as I see some dark colour in the reaction chamber, yes?

Thanks again.

Neilson ,

Sounds like you have an appropriate set up.

I would suspect your testing methodology (or maybe too high air flow rate)

I use 1 oz mms + 1 oz citric acid in a 4 oz reactor baby bottle. I heat the reactor in a small crock pot. I pump air with an aquarium pump with the flow throttled down to just bubbling through the system. The receiver is a series of 3 8 oz baby bottles chilled in a ice water bath. Running for 30 to 40 minutes I produce 24 0z of 6000 ppm CDS consistently . I use 3 receiver bottles in series (although there's more plumbing and possible leak points) as that gives an equivalent taller column of contact with the water without the back pressure of a single tall column.

Take a picture of your set up.

fourfingerz wrote:

Neilson ,
I would suspect your testing methodology (or maybe too high air flow rate)

I use 1 oz mms + 1 oz citric acid in a 4 oz reactor baby bottle. I heat the reactor in a small crock pot. I pump air with an aquarium pump with the flow throttled down to just bubbling through the system. The receiver is a series of 3 8 oz baby bottles chilled in a ice water bath. Running for 30 to 40 minutes I produce 24 0z of 6000 ppm CDS consistently . I use 3 receiver bottles in series (although there's more plumbing and possible leak points) as that gives an equivalent taller column of contact with the water without the back pressure of a single tall column.

Hi, fourfingerz.

Do you think your high(er) yield is down to the low air flow?
Before Michael mentioned it, I never thought too much air flow could be a problem.

Maybe I would be better off not using forced air at all?

I'm just worried that there won't be enough pressure generated by the MMS/CA alone.
When I try to blow through the 'plumbing' of my setup here, its very hard to blow through.
The forced air ensures that there actually is air flow.

If I were to add two more receiver bottles, I fear that there won't be pressure enough from the MMS/CA alone. Forced air seems like a must in this case?

Do you use bubbler stones in your system?

Thanks.

Hi Neilson,

I started out just using heat and 1 8 oz receiver (as per Jim's instructions at the time) . With 1 oz mms and 1 oz citric acid, I would produce 8 oz's of 6000 ppm CDS. With forced air I produce 24 oz's from the same charge ( I mix all 3 bottles to get that).

I tried diffusers but one dissolved, clogged and blew the hose out. It wasn't the air stone that dissolved it was the plastic barb fitting. For safety I no longer use them - others do with forced air without problems - but I don't see any advantage - just risk.

I would imagine forced air is a must with multiple bottles - haven't tried passive with multiples. And with a pump I plumb the exhaust right up the stove top exhaust fan. ( I do run a fan on the counter to dissipate any leaks or pop offs)

It sounds like you were running your pump full flow . Plumb a "T" into the hose between the pump and the reactor, then install a valve on the stub. You can then adjust the flow to the system - I adjust to just get bubbling in all receiver bottles.

Passive is less efficient, takes longer, and you can exhaust out of the room (with forced air), - so I pump .

Keep trying - you'll figure it out!!

OK, so I made another batch of CDS.

I really think [most of] it was down to the forced air thing.

What I did this time was use two receiver bottles. Both had diffusers in them.
The first receiver bottle was the CDS from the first batch (500 PPM).

I started with 50ml MMS and 50ml CA.
Let that run for 10 mins only.

I then threw out the solution in the reaction chamber, and immediately added another 25ml of MMS/CA and let that 'brew' for 5 mins.

The result was 6000-8000 PPM on the first receiver bottle, and about 3000 PPM on the second one.
Both bottles containing roughly 500ml each.

But still, low'ish yield, wouldn't you say?

I've ordered a new air pump. This one will have a 72 liters/hour air flow. [this was the smallest one I could find]
The old one I used for the two CDS sessions had 120 liters/hour air flow.

I reckon minimum airflow is needed. I think we want lots of slow moving bubbles. And tiny bubbles, too.
I might have to somehow stem the airflow of the new pump even further to get even less airflow.

I was thinking that once the MMS/CA solution in the reaction chamber has lost most of its colour, one should switch off the air pump and let it sit for a while.
I'm thinking whatever air/gas flow there is from then on has to be chlorine dioxide fumes only, right?
This way you don't risk pushing out the chlorine dioxide in the receiver bottles with forced air. At least this is my theory.
Please someone correct me on this in case I'm wrong.

Neilson,

When you shut off the pump to let it sit - observe - the bubbler tubing - you may get your CDS getting sucked up into the tubing as a slight vacuum may be created. This is not a crisis but a pain to clean up (and loss of CDS).

I actually do the reverse - I leave the pump on while dis-assembling from the receivers from the system to stop tube filling.

fourfingerz wrote:

Neilson,

When you shut off the pump to let it sit - observe - the bubbler tubing - you may get your CDS getting sucked up into the tubing as a slight vacuum may be created. This is not a crisis but a pain to clean up (and loss of CDS).

I actually do the reverse - I leave the pump on while dis-assembling from the receivers from the system to stop tube filling.

Thanks.
Will keep an eye on it next time.