What is not calculated is whether the cooler is at all capable of condensing all the vapor and cooling it down to the desired temperature with cooling water that may be very hot. In addition, of course, the distillate cannot become colder than the cooling water. For example, if the cooling water before distillation is 20°C and the calculator calculates a heating of 25°C, the water after distillation will have a temperature of 45°C. This means that the lowest possible temperature of the distillate is 20°C at the beginning of distillation and 45°C at the end. If, however, the computer calculates a heating of 90°C, for example, and the cooling water initially has a temperature of 20°C, this results in a temperature of 20 + 90 = 110°C, i.e. a temperature above the boiling point of water. This means that the cooling water quantity is too low or the cooling water temperature is too high.
The main purpose of this calculator is to estimate whether the reservoir is generally large enough.
Because this calculator does not enter the data of the distillate but the heating power, power losses due to heat radiation are not taken into account. So this calculator assumes a perfectly insulated still. In practice, the cooling water will heat up somewhat less, since not all of the power reaches the cooling water. However, this calculation method has the advantage that it is also suitable for reflux distillations.
The heating time is not counted as part of the distillation time. The start of distillation is the moment when the cooling water first comes into contact with vapor.
The cooling down of the distillate is not considered in this calculator, since this has hardly any share in the cooling water heating in reflux distillations.