Quick and dirty temperature control loop with off-the-shelf amazon components. For DBD plasma reactor. One-day build. 

Year: 2022

Problem

Needed a quick solution to control the temperature of a heat transfer block for a plasma reactor cell, to remove the heat generated, and maintain temperatures between room temperature and just under boiling. Most small fluid temp control solutions do not provide heating options, and those that do (for injection molding) are industrial sized (2-3 phase, high pressure, LOUD, etc.) and cooled with chilled feedwater.

Strategy

Used off the shelf beer brewing and computer cooling components from amazon to rough out a cooling/heating loop, controlled either externally via RTD, PLC and heating/cooling relays, or via integral bang-bang self-contained temperature controller (with the RTD only for data collection).

Used (variously): Wort pump, triclamp spools, automotive coolant reservoir, computer fans and heat exchanger, silicone radiator hose.  

Results

The system ended up running for over a year without a major rebuild, I should have but never did add a thermal fuse to the heater, which would have prevented it's eventual failure.