I’m getting ready to purchase my first butane extractor, but I still have some questions I haven’t found answers for.
Can I extract with the column only ¼ the way full of material? If so, do I need to add anything to fill in the void?
Am I correct in understanding that the distillation process is a balance between heat and pressure? For instance, the lower the temperature that I boil off the butane, the less pressure I’m building in the collection tank, and the less pressure I have to push butane vapor into the recovery tank. So it would become more important that I get the recovery tank even colder, to create more vacuum and make up for the reduced pressure in the collection tank.
Yes, you are correct. Basically, just hot and cold pressure exchange. PV=nRT
You probably don’t need to heat your evaporator to more than 30c. If you have a good heat exchange to take the load of phase change, keeping your tank cold enough to maintain vacuum for recovery should be fairly easy. Having a more open pathway for vapor to flow easily (think wider hoses), helps too.