The brine's journey through Ciechocinek
The salt stays, the water goes.
One batch, 50 salt marks. Move the sliders: the water leaves on a single scale, while there are still 50 salt marks.
Without JavaScript you see the model's default state (100 kg, 5.0%, graduation tower 70%, pan 85%). The sliders are then hidden, and the balance table and the explanations below describe the same transformation.
Model diagram of one batch of brine (teaching values, not measurements). It is not a map or a plan of the installation.
Intake
raw brine · in V2: source no. 11 (to be checked) · the salinity is an assumption, not a measurement
- Water
- 95.0 kg
- Dissolved salt
- 5.0 kg
- Concentration
- 5.0%
All the salt is dissolved. Mass and salinity are teaching assumptions.
Graduation tower
blackthorn wall · wind and sun · the slider is the % of water from the intake
- Water lost
- 66.5 kg
- Water in the liquor
- 28.5 kg
- Salt (unchanged)
- 5.0 kg
- Concentration
- 14.9%
The salt stays, so the liquor (concentrated brine) thickens. In the model the concentration after the graduation tower does not exceed 25%: the tower itself does not form crystals.
Pan
salt-boiling house · fire under the pan · the slider is the % of water from the graduation tower
- Water lost
- 24.2 kg
- Water in the liquor
- 4.3 kg
- Dissolved salt
- 1.5 kg
- Crystals
- 3.5 kg
- Liquor concentration
- 26.4%
Saturated liquor (model threshold 26.4%): excess salt falls out as crystals.
First the wind and sun at the graduation tower take the water, then the fire under the pan takes the rest. Crystals form only in the pan, once the liquor exceeds the saturation threshold.
- dissolved salt mark (≈ 2% of the batch's salt)
- salt crystal (pile beside the pan, as after raking out onto the evaporator)
- water, one scale in all vessels
- water that has left the vessel
Mark balance
50 salt marks = 15 dissolved + 35 in crystals (1 mark ≈ 2% of the batch's salt).
Salt mass: 5.0 kg at the intake, 5.0 kg after the graduation tower; after the pan 1.5 kg dissolved + 3.5 kg crystals (rounding).
The same transformation in the table · How much fire the graduation tower saves
The same transformation in numbers
The table corresponds to the drawing above and changes together with the sliders. The rows show the state of the solution after each stage of the same batch.
| Stage | Mass of solution | Water | Dissolved salt | Salt in crystals | Concentration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Intake | 100.0 kg | 95.0 kg | 5.0 kg | 0.0 kg | 5.0% |
| 2 · Graduation tower | 33.5 kg | 28.5 kg | 5.0 kg | 0.0 kg | 14.9% |
| 3 · Pan | 5.8 kg | 4.3 kg | 1.5 kg | 3.5 kg | 26.4% · saturated |
How much fire the graduation tower saves
Evaporating water takes heat. The bars below compare this batch with a variant without the graduation tower, in which the pan alone would have to evaporate the same water. Both bars share one scale: the full length is the heat of evaporation of all the batch's water (214.7 MJ).
73.3% of the evaporation heat in this batch is supplied by the graduation tower (wind and sun), 26.7% by the firebox.
The hatched bar is evaporation at the graduation tower, the rust-coloured one is fire. The batch mass changes the figures in MJ but not the proportions of the bars: a full bar is always all the water of the given batch. The calculation includes only the heat of evaporation of water (2.26 MJ/kg, teaching value). It does not include pumping, furnace losses, firebox efficiency or weather.
Assumptions and limits of the model
This is a diagram of one batch, not a plan of the installation or a description of how the works operate. The default figures (5% salinity, 70% at the graduation tower, 85% in the pan, a 25% limit after the graduation tower) are teaching settings, not operator data or measurements.
What the model calculates
- The mass of salt does not change: it neither escapes with the steam nor disappears.
- Water leaves in two steps, each as a percentage of the water that reached it.
- The graduation tower thickens the liquor to 25% at most. Above that the slider stops having an effect, so that the tower does not crystallise salt.
- Crystals form in the pan when the concentration exceeds the 26.4% threshold (an assumed NaCl solution threshold, fixed in the model).
- Heat of evaporation: 2.26 MJ per 1 kg of water.
What it does not calculate
- The composition of real brine (other salts), the dependence of solubility on temperature, or the moisture of the crystals.
- Weather, the number of times the brine passes through the graduation tower wall, pumping, furnace losses or fuel consumption.
- The route of the pipes, technical zones, or the accessibility of the facilities to visitors.
- Any health properties of the aerosol.
What changed compared with V2
- Removed the notebook that saved in the browser: it did not explain the process.
- Four mass presets were replaced by a single number field.
- The matrix of 50 marks was moved into the main drawing.
- Added a limit on the concentration after the graduation tower: in V2, at 8% and 80%, the liquor could exceed the saturation threshold even though the tower was meant not to crystallise.
- The word “saturated” appears only when there are crystals.
- The photo of the graduation tower is a link, not an embedded image, so that the page works offline.
Place and sources
The facts about the place were copied from the V2 material. These sources were not reopened when building V3, so each needs checking. The drawing is a diagram of the process, not a map.
- Graduation tower complex: three structures, wooden constructions up to 15.8 m; towers I and II from 1824–1828, III from 1859 (per the town's website).
- Salt-boiling house at ul. Solna 6: salt production recorded from 1832 (per NID, the National Heritage Board of Poland).
- The Salt-Boiling House Museum (Muzeum Warzelni Soli) displays pans, tools and wagons (per the Uzdrowisko Ciechocinek website).
- Urząd Miejski w Ciechocinku: Tężnie Solankowe [Ciechocinek Town Hall: Brine graduation towers] — intake, pumping, construction dates, height, evaporation on blackthorn.
- Uzdrowisko Ciechocinek: Muzeum Warzelni Soli [Uzdrowisko Ciechocinek: Salt-Boiling House Museum] — pan technology, evaporators, wagons.
- Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa: Warzelnia soli [National Heritage Board of Poland: Salt-boiling house] — history of the complex, technological sequence, production from 1832.
- Photo of the graduation tower (not embedded, link only): Wikimedia Commons, photo by Przemek P, licence CC BY-SA 3.0 (to be checked).
The values 26.4% and 2.26 MJ/kg are teaching simplifications that need expert consultation. The page is not a visit plan or a confirmation that the facilities are accessible.