Plastic Barrel/drum Heating

The stock tank heaters used to be pretty corrosive resistant. Way back we used them to heat the water and then reheat the fixer and developer for large photographic film in the oilfield. The fixer was particularly nasty stuff. Don't remember one ever failing.
 
Don't know about ambient temperature, are you working outside? We used to heat 50 gallon aquariums with a heater, but it only raised it from room temp to maybe 85º.
 
We used drum band type heaters for a number of things at the ski areas. As someone said, they work great for their intended purpose - heating 30 or 55 gallon drums, especially if insulated. Poly drums are OK because they will only be heated far below summer ambient temperatures. The band heaters work on about anything you can get them wrapped around; batteries, hydraulic cylinders, oil tanks, etc. Most have fixed thermostats, some have adjustable thermostats.
 
JimDawson said:
Band heaters work just fine, especially if you insulate the barrel. The real question is: What is the operating temperature? A poly-barrel is not going to take much heat. Another option might be an in-line hot tub heater, or maybe even a water heater.
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Max fill temp for a HDPE 55 gal drum is 160'F. A water heater element would have little difficult achieving that.

BAnd heaters risk softening the barrel, whereas an immersion heater won't be having to heat the barrel first and then the material inside. An immersion heater will directly heat the material contained and will be far less likely to soften the drum. I have heated water to damn near boiling with no distortion of the drum. One note, retain the upper rim of the drum to support the sides in a round shape!
 
"BAnd heaters risk softening the barrel" That is not correct. Same principal as the reason you can boil water in a paper bag over an open flame. The liquid inside absorbs the heat fast enough that the plastic does not get but a few degrees warmer that the liquid, which should not need to be even as warm as room temperature.
 
I have a new, unused hot tub heater that a friend wants me to sell for him. It could be set in a riser tube outside the drum so that as the water or cleaning solution heats it rises and returns to the drum, convection style. He never said how much he wanted for it, but I can find out if you're interested. I believe it is is a 4kw heater, so ample for a 30 gal drum, for sure. Fully submersible, as it is designed to be used as in-line heater, so it's all stainless.

I have an old Safety Kleen parts washer than finally rusted out and I need to replace the drum. I just put it in storage. I used plain mineral spirits in it, with about a quart of motor oil to "soften" it up a little. Pure MS can be hard on the skin. I never thought of warming it up, but I'm sure it would work better. I kept about 3-4 gallons of water in it, on top of which the MS floated. All the heavier debris sunk into the water and the pump was suspended just above the water line so it never picked up any trash. Worked great for about 20 years. I just need to get another drum.
 
Not sure a poly barrel will dissipate the heat from a band heater? A steel barrel would be more efficient with insulation.
Martin
 
Groundhog said:
"BAnd heaters risk softening the barrel" That is not correct. Same principal as the reason you can boil water in a paper bag over an open flame. The liquid inside absorbs the heat fast enough that the plastic does not get but a few degrees warmer that the liquid, which should not need to be even as warm as room temperature.
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Let me restate that, a band heater for a steel barrel should not be used on a palstic barrel as it risks softening the barrel.

there are specific band heaters for plastic drums, but I thought OP was wanting to repurpose an existing steel drum heating band.
 
As simple as it is to make up a mount using PVC pipe and a residential water heater element, I can't see any reason to use any other method.

If the process is corrosive to the element, they are cheap enough to throw away when they fail and I'm sure they could be bought cheply enough from a Chi-Com supplier if one's process ate them quickly enough.

The heating element in my parkerizing tank definitely had a build-up on the element that reduceed the efficiency, but it worked so well I never saw a reason to do anything differently and the element I used lasted the entire life of my use of the tank and AFAIK it is still in use by the gentleman I gave it to.

If a cheapie (trust me, I wouldn't have spent real money on the heating element) worked as well as it did for me exposed to phosphoric acid and iron/zinc salts, I cant' imagine what one could expose tham to that would more aggressively attack them than my usage.

Lastly, it HAS to be more efficient to directly heat the fluid rather than heat the element, the drum and then the liquid.
 
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