Re-charging your CRSpotless *Resin*
- Thread starter SuperBee364
- Start date
Kean
New member
.....I appreciate the sharing of information Supe. It looks promising so far. I just changed mine recently and now regret throwing out the used resin.
David Fermani
Forza Auto Salon
You guys should check out PurClean's RO system. They make a portable system that is very nice:
New Wave Industries - Maker of PurClean Spot-Free Rinse Car Systems and PurWater Water Recovery Car Systems
New Wave Industries - Maker of PurClean Spot-Free Rinse Car Systems and PurWater Water Recovery Car Systems
SuperBee364
New member
David Fermani said:
I've been looking at a garage RO unit for years. It looks like David has found the one I'd love to get when I get out of the save-a-hundred-bucks-on-DI-resin mode and get into the blow-a-few-thousand-bucks-on-an-RO-system mode. The only drawback to them is the waste water. I guess as long as it's collected and used for watering the lawn or something. But ya just can't beat real RO water, that's for sure.
SuperBee364
New member
OK, just a quick run down of the whole process... All measurements are by volume, not by weight.
Pic of most everything I used.
Put about three gallons of cold tap water in the white five gallon bucket. Put about five gallons of DI water into the orange five gallon bucket.
1. mix 15 oz of lye into 55 oz of cold *DI* (or Distilled) water. As shown.
Put an airtight lid on it, and shake it. It'll get hot fast. Carefully release the excess pressure, and let the container cool off in the five gallon bucket of cool water. Every few minutes, shake it again. Do this until it no longer gets hot when shaken. Takes about five times.
Now that you have your lye solution ready, you're ready to soak all the resin in it. Dump a bunch of resin into your container. I used the ones already shown, but here's another pic of it. This is after dumping a bunch of DI resin into the container, then adding the lye solution to it. Notice that the fluid gap is between the two layers of resin. That's what you want. If the fluid gap is on top of the resin, then you don't have enough lye solution. Add more lye solution until the gap separates the two media types.
Now you have to separate the two resin types. The Anion resin is floating on the top of the lye solution, and is getting recharged *by* the lye solution. The Cation resin (dark purple) has sunk to the bottom, and is now completely spent. I used the yellow transmission filling valve to drain the Cation resin off of the bottom of the tank. I poured it into a strainer, then ran a gallon of DI water through it to rinse as much of the lye off of it as possible. The Cation resin is going to take an acid bath, so removing as much lye (by rinsing it with DI water first) is very helpful to keep from neutralizing too much of the acid.
I then placed the rinsed cation resin into one of the large plastic cereal containers and added a 1:1 muriatic acid
I Water solution to it until it was completely covered in the acid bath. Stir it well, several times over the next thirty minutes.
Now drain the Anion resin (use a strainer) and rinse it thoroughly with DI water, straining as much water out as you can. Place it in a new ziploc bag. Do the same thing with the Cation resin. You're done.
Now if you want to try your luck at separate filters, some guys have had some success. But supposedly (and even though it's more work), mixing equal parts of anion/cation resin is better. I'm not very happy with how much water I got out of my resin, and I'm slightly concerned that there's enough lye/acid in each corresponding resin to negatively effect mixing them together, but I'm going to give it a shot today and see what happens.
Keeping them separate in different cartridges would certainly make the whole resin recharge thing go much easier. Guess I'll have to find out which one should go first if you keep them separate instead of doing a mixed-bed cartridge.
Edit: The 55 oz of water and 15 oz of lye wasn't enough to recharge an entire CRSpotless full of resin. It'll do about 3/4's of it. You'll still need to do a smaller batch. My smaller batch was 22 oz of water and 6 oz of lye. On the acid side, just mix it one to one with DI water, and add it to the resin until the resin is completely submerged by the acid bath. Next time, I'll just do a 77 oz of water to 21 oz of lye solution and do it all in one batch.
Pic of most everything I used.
Put about three gallons of cold tap water in the white five gallon bucket. Put about five gallons of DI water into the orange five gallon bucket.
1. mix 15 oz of lye into 55 oz of cold *DI* (or Distilled) water. As shown.
Put an airtight lid on it, and shake it. It'll get hot fast. Carefully release the excess pressure, and let the container cool off in the five gallon bucket of cool water. Every few minutes, shake it again. Do this until it no longer gets hot when shaken. Takes about five times.
Now that you have your lye solution ready, you're ready to soak all the resin in it. Dump a bunch of resin into your container. I used the ones already shown, but here's another pic of it. This is after dumping a bunch of DI resin into the container, then adding the lye solution to it. Notice that the fluid gap is between the two layers of resin. That's what you want. If the fluid gap is on top of the resin, then you don't have enough lye solution. Add more lye solution until the gap separates the two media types.
Now you have to separate the two resin types. The Anion resin is floating on the top of the lye solution, and is getting recharged *by* the lye solution. The Cation resin (dark purple) has sunk to the bottom, and is now completely spent. I used the yellow transmission filling valve to drain the Cation resin off of the bottom of the tank. I poured it into a strainer, then ran a gallon of DI water through it to rinse as much of the lye off of it as possible. The Cation resin is going to take an acid bath, so removing as much lye (by rinsing it with DI water first) is very helpful to keep from neutralizing too much of the acid.
I then placed the rinsed cation resin into one of the large plastic cereal containers and added a 1:1 muriatic acid
I Water solution to it until it was completely covered in the acid bath. Stir it well, several times over the next thirty minutes.Now drain the Anion resin (use a strainer) and rinse it thoroughly with DI water, straining as much water out as you can. Place it in a new ziploc bag. Do the same thing with the Cation resin. You're done.
Now if you want to try your luck at separate filters, some guys have had some success. But supposedly (and even though it's more work), mixing equal parts of anion/cation resin is better. I'm not very happy with how much water I got out of my resin, and I'm slightly concerned that there's enough lye/acid in each corresponding resin to negatively effect mixing them together, but I'm going to give it a shot today and see what happens.
Keeping them separate in different cartridges would certainly make the whole resin recharge thing go much easier. Guess I'll have to find out which one should go first if you keep them separate instead of doing a mixed-bed cartridge.
Edit: The 55 oz of water and 15 oz of lye wasn't enough to recharge an entire CRSpotless full of resin. It'll do about 3/4's of it. You'll still need to do a smaller batch. My smaller batch was 22 oz of water and 6 oz of lye. On the acid side, just mix it one to one with DI water, and add it to the resin until the resin is completely submerged by the acid bath. Next time, I'll just do a 77 oz of water to 21 oz of lye solution and do it all in one batch.
Kean
New member
....thanks again Supe.
So you added the used, mixed resin and it automatically seperates in the lye solution as shown?
So you added the used, mixed resin and it automatically seperates in the lye solution as shown?
SuperBee364
New member
Kean said:
Yes... the two resin types separate in the lye solution. The Anion floats, the Cation sinks. The Anion is recharged in the lye, the cation becomes completely spent, and in need of an acid bath to recharge.
SuperBee364
New member
It worked.
The water hardness where I'm at varies tremendously. The first several times I checked it, it was well over 800 TDS. Today, it's only 300 and change, as shown in this picture, which is my CRSpotless system without any resin in it.
Below is a pic of the meter after installing Supe's Souper De-Ionizing Resin Pro (No, it's not available for download from the iTunes store for you iPhone users):
So now really the only question that remains is how long this recharged resin will last. I did end up losing a bit more resin than I woulda liked; about two cups, total, but I'm sure as I get better (and get better equipment) the total amount lost will be negligible.
Now if you'll 'scuse me, I got a couple vehicles to wash.
The water hardness where I'm at varies tremendously. The first several times I checked it, it was well over 800 TDS. Today, it's only 300 and change, as shown in this picture, which is my CRSpotless system without any resin in it.
Below is a pic of the meter after installing Supe's Souper De-Ionizing Resin Pro (No, it's not available for download from the iTunes store for you iPhone users):
So now really the only question that remains is how long this recharged resin will last. I did end up losing a bit more resin than I woulda liked; about two cups, total, but I'm sure as I get better (and get better equipment) the total amount lost will be negligible.
Now if you'll 'scuse me, I got a couple vehicles to wash.
Maybe we should all just ship our Resin to Accum and let him recharge it for us for a fee and the cost of postage back to us. I figure with some practice and more ingenuity, Sup should have this down to a science and could have a resin recharging assembly line going on in his garage.
SuperBee364
New member
bert31 said:
Umm.... you're spying on me, aren't you?
That's exactly what I'm doing right now... searching the internet for replacement parts to make this process *really* easy.Supe,
Way to go - you're the man. The only thing I'm confused about is this - does our resin "separate" and the Cation resin become dark during the process because all of the resin appears to be a uniform gold.
I'm going to wait for you to tweak your system before I dive in. I still have 2/3 of my cubic foot left. But if I can recharge it instead of reordering, we'll owe you one. :hifive:
Way to go - you're the man. The only thing I'm confused about is this - does our resin "separate" and the Cation resin become dark during the process because all of the resin appears to be a uniform gold.
I'm going to wait for you to tweak your system before I dive in. I still have 2/3 of my cubic foot left. But if I can recharge it instead of reordering, we'll owe you one. :hifive:
SuperBee364
New member
jb1 said:
That is kinda strange.... all the cation resin does turn very dark when it's spent, and it stays that way, even after it's recharged. But yes, it does separate nicely into the two different resin types.
Yeah, the verdict is still out on how long this resin will last, so I hope everyone still sits on the sidelines for a bit to make sure this is going to last before going out and buying everything needed to try this.
Greg Nichols
New member
Super duper there Brandt,
What did the wife say about you invading the kitchen with your "chem lab"?
thanks again for allowing to crash at your place on my way to SEMA...............you have to go next year now that your only a 125 miles away.
Cheers,
GREG
What did the wife say about you invading the kitchen with your "chem lab"?
thanks again for allowing to crash at your place on my way to SEMA...............you have to go next year now that your only a 125 miles away.
Cheers,
GREG
SuperBee364 said:Umm.... you're spying on me, aren't you?
I actually said that in jest (just forgot the smilie) but if this process works out as well as you are hoping, I wouldn't mind sending you my resin with a payment to you. There is no sense in all of us having our own chem lab in our garage.
SuperBee364
New member
Greg Nichols said:
You're welcome *any* time, Greg. Was good to see you. The wife didn't mind the chem lab so much, but I think I got the neighbor's attention.
bert31 said:
Not a bad idea... Something to consider.
Accumulator
Well-known member
bert31 said:
Heh heh :grinno: I'm still on the fence about whether this would be worth my doing it. I'm more likely to be the guy paying somebody else to do it for me.
Sure do appreciate SuperBee364's figuring it all out and posting the good explanation though!
SuperBee364
New member
bert31 said:
No worries... my wife calls me by the wrong name at least once per day....
And I may just consider doing resin charging as kind of a winter project, if there's enough interest here in it.
Still need to make sure that the recharged resin is going to last as long as the factory new stuff first though.
Accumulator
Well-known member
bert31 said:
Heh heh, OK...that makes a lot better sense