Aim: Deposit the L-Menthol fumes being released during drying.

Problems being faced: L-Menthol freezing point is 31

0
C, therefore when the fumes from the exhaust are
passed through any sort of cooling device, L-Menthol directly coverts into solids and hence blocks the
cooling coils. So, some sort of system needs to be devised in which menthol can be removed easily.
Suggestion 1:
Mix the exhaust gas with very cold gas in a chamber in which the menthol will solidify which in turn can
be scrapped off very easily, provided no baffles, impellors or anything has been installed in the chamber.
Sublimation of menthol is negligible at 4
0
C, hence if we can bring the temperature of gaseous mixture
down to this temperature, we can be assured that no menthol vapors are left in the air.
To bring down 40
0
c exhaust gas to 4
0
C we need cool air to be at-least as low as -30
0
c which is not
possible by using R-22(standard coolant being used in the plant) according to our trials in the plant.
So just like R-22, we could use liquid nitrogen (LN) to cool air as its temperature is -197
o
C. This way air
be cooled to a very low temperature and Nitrogen gas can be again converted into LN.

Suggestion 2:
Second method is to use liquid nitrogen in some way that it is directly mixed with the exhaust gas (EG).
Liquid Nitrogen is both cheap and very effective in instant cooling. In this the major challenge is that
how the liquid nitrogen (LN) will be mixed with the exhaust gas?
To solve the above problem I thought of 2 ways to directly mix the LN with EG. It is being assumed the
proper cooling of EG will take place and solid menthol will settle down, in both the following methods:
1. Bubble EG through LN (like oxygen is sparged into the reactor). This can ensure proper cooling of
EG but will lead to huge consumption of LN as cooling of EG beyond the temperature at which
the deposition is complete is not required, but will happen in this scenario.

EG being sparged in LN LN being sprayed over EG

2. Spraying LN on EG. In this way if proper cooling is achieved the problem of excessive cooling as
in previous case, can be resolved. Menthol particles will keep settling down and can be removed
later.
For both the cases, how to test them at lab scale is yet to be understood. Spraying LN over EG should be
the best method to deposit menthol as we have the control over LN being used while ensuring complete
deposition.
To test this what we can do is put some known amount of menthol in closed glass chamber and whole of
it should evaporate. Once this is done, we can first test by spraying double the amount of LN
theoretically required. Just a few seconds later we can open the slid and look for menthol deposits. We
cant leave the lid closed for enough time as it needs to be a continuous process later. If successful, we
can reduce the amount of LN used to get the optimum value. This experiment is highly dependent on
the fact that a decent amount of menthol evaporates in a small chamber at the first step, as only then
we can hope for some menthol deposits.