Cyclopath runs SRI GCs and he is clearly someone who knows what he is doing.
Dude above is just pissy because he’s a consultant who clearly has no grasp on how distillation actually works and is instructing his clients to toss thousands of dollars worth of perfectly good solvent.
Come on dog, fractional distillation is inherent in any refining process, i didnt say it because its so freaking simple of coarse it would be included. Im talking about the potential hundreds of similar boiling point compounds, of which, many need more of a complex dynamic filter media than activated carbon, not to mention the byproducts of those compounds being heated and reacting in the presence of ethanol and the other compounds pre-refining.
They dont just give these Verified Consultant badges out
Yeah, I do, that why I said that. You guys do a lot more than cannabis, so your units for its analysis are not ideal, youre supporting my point.
Can’t you adjust the ph of crude? Am I missing something? I’ve broken every rule of keeping a hydrophilic liquid with no cover in rain country in oregon. I notice minimal changes to run ethanol. I do have a copper arm on my ethanol recovery machine and that might affect the ph by removing contaminates. This is the first I’ve thought about that though.
@Psilisophical instead of playing the zero - sum game, how about win win? You’re a consultant, and so am I. Whether or not you advise your clients on GC, it may benefit you to be up to date on your knowledge of GC.
If you would like to talk one on one, the offer is on the table.
For now. (;
Summer
Damn Summer is hot and knows GC… and my last girlfriend said I would never find someone that could satisfy me…
Come on snook. Let’s keep it professional. We don’t wanna scare the few woman we have on the site away.
And you won’t satisfy her until you buy one her GCs
Yeah so mister verified consultant Do you have a testing solution that is used only on cannabis? Like does somehow a lab equipment manufacturer who only deals with cannabis make better products for testing cannabis? Your logic is super flawed
We need to test for mycotoxins, metals, pesticides, terpenes, and a whole slew of other stuff not to mention cannabinoids which GC is absolutely viable for testing, you just have to use proper procedures for accurate reads which is true of any analytical equipment.
I absolutely agree with you that any commercial scale operation should be cycling through solvents so that each extraction is as effective as possible however disposing of solvent after one or two uses seems to be a little excessive. It seems to me that solvents should be monitored and if it fails to meet requirements then it should be pulled and remediated or disposed of depending on the issue.
From my personal experience I know that changes to etOH solutions vary depending on the biomass that you are extracting, no doubt the etOH is forming a water azeotrope when the extraction is done subzero in a container exposed to air and naturally this is going to provide opportunity for more contaminants to be pulled over and increased likelihood of PH swings.
I do also know that any operation doing large scale cold ethanol extractions in vats that aren’t airtight and especially when using rotovaps for recovery are going to experience significant lose of solvent to the atmosphere and that you will need to regularly bring in fresh solvent.
Either way I see the need for developing better standards in this area. Solvent should be closely monitored and tested on a regular basis on a number of metrics particularly PH, pesticide contamination, and H2O in etOH.
I am a fan of setting up a remediation still such as the one @Rowan uses, I think that is a viable option moving forward. I am also working on the thresholds that solvent will be pulled at. I have definitely been working through PH corrections during my separations and filtrations and will have to give the Carbon Chemistry high PH activated carbon a shot, curious how that performs for sure.
Yea so I totally feel this, when you are working with large volumes it could definitely be cheaper and certainly easier to just toss the bad and start with fresh however where do you store and dispose of hundreds of gallons of used denatured etOH? In WA we can dispose of 20g a month for free but these large volumes become costly just to dispose of… Now I have been researching using etOH as a renewable energy source, many unmodified cars can run just fine off of 40% ethanol, it would be pretty cool to find a useful way of using all that unused solvent!
Hi MidsMasterMax, I agree this is a huge problem with ethanol extraction and would like to give my two cents on this.
First off are you using dry ice or CO2 at all? I know most grows have excess CO2 pumped in. CO2 (especially from dry ice) can dissolve in water forming carbonic acid.
Second, I dont think distillation is going to solve your acid problem. Its a very expensive way to solve a ph issue especially with the water azeotrope. I suggest you try eliminating neutralizing the solution and then removing as much of the water as you can with A3 molecular sieves. @Photon_noir wrote in his Citric Acid Degumming Tech, (https://future4200.com/t/citric-acid-degumming-tek/936) " Finally, use the Hydrion paper to test the pH of your degummed ethanol:cannabinoid solution. The pH should be the same as it was when you started, when the paper warms to room temperature after about 1 minute… unless some magnesium citrate salt made it through, which will make it more alkaline… hopefully a nice neutral 7.
However, just in case it is more acidic (i.e. ONLY if it has lower pH than it started with ), let the liquid warm to room temperature in a covered vessel (to keep out water condensation from the air), then fully stir in small pinches of magnesium oxide (MgO) at a time to bring the pH to 7."
I like the idea of using MgO because it doesnt require any hydrocarbon/saline washes. My lab is not rated for hydrocarbons so that is not an option for me. If MgO can correct pH from citric acid washes then most likely it can take care of whatever acids are in your initial extraction.
Yeah i never said that i toss the solvents after a single use, just that after a certain point youre going to need fresh influx, and that its a lot easier to do than to have a whole seperate operation for constant re-proofing and refining.
One potential downside is the need for a federal license. A distilled spirits plant (DSP) may be established to manufacture articles, or produce, bottle or package, denature or warehouse spirits for industrial use . These spirits are not intended for beverage use.
this will show you how to break the azeotrope, and re-isolate the ethanol.
I recently had to take it apart so the heaters aren’t all set up but you get the picture
This thread is hot! Hee hee.
So…
Small scale you should probably re-use/refresh.
It’s a numbers game the bigger you go, economies of scale get real fun.
You can probably buy 10,000L of ethanol for under $3/L in bulk. The capital requires to remediate that much ethanol readily; plus the power requirements, potential hazard ratings, space, permits, cost of capital, etc.
Sometimes it pays to leave some things up to professionals. But it’s undoubtedly an engineering question with a long varying answer.
That’s pretty much the long and short of it.
Yes to PRODUCE ethanol- you are not producing ethanol if you purchased it and paid the tax on it, you are simply running a process that is covered by your MJ/hemp liscense.
