Has anyone used Qsonica? They white label some parts for the Industrial Sonomechanics. Much less expensive than the IS systems.
I’m considering a Q2000FCE in flow-through setup with a jacketed conical mixing tank with overhead stirrer. Wondering if anyone has run Qsonica flow-through system? I like the ultrasonics can can be daisy-chained to increase throughput.
What model did you get? Are you using flow cell or batch? And now it has been 6 months, would you buy it again? Would you have purchased a different model if you could do it again? What throughput are you getting and at what oil load and cannabinoid concentration?
I’m considering the Hielscher UIP1000hdT with MPC48 needle injection. It’s the smaller more bench scale unit. Supposed to do up to 9L/hr. The unit itself isn’t too pricey, but then the ancillary equipment would get it over $35K without breaking a sweat.
The MPC48 (Multi-phase cavitator 48) isn’t available for the production model (UIP4000hdT).
As a side issue, I was asked Hielscher about their claims of liposomes from ultrasonic. Here’s what Hielscher sent me by email. I uploaded the three studies Hielscher shared with me regarding liposomes with ultrasconic. I figured @Rowan may have opinions and comments about this topic:
It was nice talking with you too. Thank you for the information. Could you also share the Ws/ml (energy required) and Time required for 1 litres with your existing ultrasonicator?
I have enclosed the information we discussed during our call.
UIP1000hdT:
A UIP1000hdT set-up with MPC48, flow-cell, probe, pressure sensor etc. will cost you about $23,000.
This product is first-in-line for large-scale production with process capacity of 36 litres nano-emulsion per hour.
Hielscher devices could be plugged to Mac or PC for remote monitoring and controlling. All our devices will allow you to control and measure temperature, pressure, amplitude during every second of sonication and are built for 24x7 operations. You could be linearly scale-up your process as your capacity increases.
I have also enclosed research papers on using ultrasonics for liposome-delivery. I have more papers and you will also find in the internet on pharmaceutical manufacturers using ultrasonics for liposomal delivery.
We got the UP200ht. We have the flow cell for it but don’t use it because it’s actually faster to just use batches with the 200 watt unit. If I could do it again I’d get something more powerful and probably go with a cheaper brand like qsonica. I have a bunch of different formulations, my main formulation is 25 mg/mL (not sure on exact particle size but I can sterile filter it with no loss of cannabinoids so the average particle size must be below 220nm) and I have some up to 75 mg/mL. In concentrated form we have about 5-6 weeks of stability before we start seeing phase separation. We can only process about 1L per hour or so.
I have been working with Hielscher on our scale up and getting quotes on the MPC48 and cascatrode and pressurized cell, and honestly, I think it is overkill. Quote was getting close to $50k, and we still needed reservoirs, pumps, etc.
I think people are thinking about water soluble the wrong way; rather than think about the amount of raw material you’re solubilizing, consider the number of individual retail items you can produce. For example, how many 25 mg doses will you really be selling a month? If I can process 5-10L batches on a 2000 watt sonicator, that’s 5,000 to 10,000 25mg doses an hour. The kombucha company we own only produces like 15k bottles a week at full capacity, so if they were 100% CBD infused products we could produce their weekly requirements in a couple of hours. We are working on getting a big client right now, and they only produce 200,000 cans a month. How many companies are producing water soluble CBD products at that scale?
You’ll get better PDI with a flow through setup, but I don’t think that matters too much in practice - as long as it’s stable for over a month in concentrated form, tastes good, and is cheap to produce, you’re good to go IMO. The main benefit to a flow through besides producing a more consistent product is less labor per batch, but the tradeoff is more complexity and cost.
Working on this - I’m 2000 feet up a mountain slope completely off grid and busy as hell with harvest and terpene work- not ignoring this at all and super interested in the subject
Someone please gift me a microfluidic particle size analyzer so I can prove the shit I spout off about. I can’t keep running my mouth without quantified hard data to back it up.
We specialize in this area. If you get to a point where you don’t want to keep banging your head against the wall with formulation and you’d rather focus on incorporating into the end product, marketing and sales, you can Google “Axiomm Technologies GOO” and you’ll see our precursor.
Our formulation has been endorsed by Qsonica and Microfluidics.
Hi, you guys. Glad to see who has the world here who works in the nanoemulsion. I am an independent who does his own research since 2014. My job is mixing propylene glycol with bho- or butter, whatever. I have invested about $ 28,000 so far. Very difficult to make its 2 products homogeneous over a long period of time and without oil support. I tried with an ultrasound without continuous flow of 900 watts that did the job for 2-3 weeks. I tried a Proscientific roto stator that did the job for about 2 weeks. I tried with a Precellys Evolution in tubes of 15 ml and the product remains stable 2- 3 weeks too … I’m desperate … I’m ready to sell all my equipment if you tell me if there is really something that can do the job at least for 3 months … Please guy help me please
The nanoemulsions produced using our precursor (micro GOO) has been very successful in allowing you to create oil-in-water emulsions. Consider checking out axiomm.com and see whether it sounds like this might be helpful.
I tried dropping a very dilute cbd/ethanol solution into water and it immediately broke. I haven’t tried making an emulsion with the sonicator using ethanol as emulsifier. It’s probably have very low oil loading if it worked at all. I’ve used it to lower the viscosity of my oil phase which can help.
Yeah I typically make a coarse emulsion using high shear. I haven’t tried high pressure, but I’d love to. You can make higher oil load emulsions with those vs a sonicator I think.
One of my friends/customers in the Bay Area uses an emulsifier mixture from Stuphcorp.com. He swears by it. He says it’s fairly easy to mix and that it gives a clear, stable, good tasting nanoemulsion. He gave me his sample after he started ordering bulk. I still have the pink bottle on my shelf, but I haven’t had time to play around with it yet. I think it’s about time I start playing with it.
This effect is called quenching. When the solution is trickled into water, it dilutes the ethanol fraction drastically. This greatly reduces the solubility of the ethanol mixture.
I played around with the Stuph Corp 4525 material sample yesterday. This is their beverage emulsifier. They have other mixes for cookies and for cosmetics. I don’t have a Heilscher 400 watt ultrasound finger but only their 200 watt model. Anyway, my emulsion became clear and stable. It doesn’t need that much sonic buzzing. 1-2 minutes with moderate intensity were ok.
What are the ingredients? “Proprietary Emulsifier” isn’t something I can sell to most customers. Also how much is it? I might have to pick up a sample just to try it out.
I bought a Heilscher and am super excited by how easy it is to use with StuphCorps Emulsifier. The problem is the nano emulsion bitter taste is really giving me a hard time to get rid of. Anyone have any pointers on how to handle this? Thanks all!
