Judging by the condensation on your glass and the collection in your volatile trap, the material needs to be de-volatilized. DM me for more help I’d be happy to talk more with you and set up a consult for your processing issues.
Best of Luck!
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Red can happen from pH, but there are terpene oxides and dimers that appear as a red fraction at the 140c band. The cannabinoids themselves usually distill at the 157-172c band. If there are volatiles they will sometimes make you accidentally distill heavy stuff too because it bubbles and pops, splashing heavy material onto the condenser.
Getting rid of volatiles usually fixed 75% of color issues.
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Put your vac at like 75. Set your parameters as normal for distillation and then use your heavy’s collection flask to grab the cannabinoid fraction and use the distillate flask as a place to pull all the lighter molecules. The run normal pass.
The “pneumatics” of thc is different then most molecules so you can use that to your advantage.
The distillation is a tool and only that. Don’t baby it. This is only for if you are distilling converted crude.
The red is most likely hu-311.
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Yes, and no.
Rolled IS different, but not different enough to throw out all the extremely relevant hits on gets by searching on “wiped film” or “wfe” rather than “rolled film”.
Which was my point. To help OP find the info they needed…
Smart money is on the red not being related to how that thin film on your evaporator is being formed…and instead what you didn’t do before beginning your distillation.
however, feel free to educate me and the rest of the class on the nuances of rolling ones cannabinoids on glass vs wiping them on stainless.
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Pre processing will fix the color everytime. After decarb redilute your crude with AC and Ethanol and run it over a celite cake. PH balance if needed. You should get really clear cannabinoid fractions everytime.
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…although this comment suggest you might be using the wrong tool for the job.
So I’m now curious to hear how you or any other CTS rolled film user would differentiate their “distillate machine”.
Is @NewLevelProcess correct?
Chemtech defines their rolled films as those with an external condenser rather than how others define it by the blades being rollers versus scrapers
Left is falling film, center rolled film, right wiped film.
This image is from the president of CTS’s white paper on distillation which can be found here The Molecular Separation of Hemp Oil 4 | PDF | Distillation | Vacuum
I use thin film distillation now a days which encompasses both.
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The material I am pushing through the roller is first pass distillate completed on legacy short path system with majority of heads (99%) already gone. There is a possibility that some heads still appear even though condenser is at 112C / 2micron should push it away, I have tried condenser at 130C and body at 160C before - same dark result. I am definitely getting a product at 140C at high speed of flow I have 50/50 split and the garbage site i will re-run again later. Splashes might be the issue. Last time I ran a roller at 250 rpm. Any suggestions on the roller speed? Anyone else collected mains at 140C / 2 micron vacuum?
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@Alentia Hmmm. Tough for me say from what I know. How does your material smell after being run through the shortpath, before you load it into the wiper?
Also what happens to your post wiper distillate if you dissolve a bit in ethanol and sprinkle in some citric acid?
Also what color does your distillate look under a black light? Is it blue on both sides? Or is one green and the other blue?
Last I guess, how is your crude made? Ethanol? Might give me more ideas knowing what type of extract you have.
Going to start by saying I’ve never used rolled film and everything I say is just from logic.
First you should get rid of all volatiles before doing main body pass.
You should not be able to get any of your main body distilled at 140c.
If you’re overhead is spinning at 250 RPM the rollers inside are spinning at thousands of RPM and as such they will surely spit out whatever they touch because of centrifugal force all around in every direction (including your condenser).
I would slow down the feed and slow down your overhead RPM.
But all of that still is not going to absolve you from doing the necessary work up before putting anything into your system.
Edit: once you do all of that, you will have to set your evaporator temperature higher.
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Product practically doesnt smell or have thin sweet smell while warm as 95% product smells like.
Product is very clear, but has red tint to it.
What is the reason to use sprinkle of citric acid?
I can check black light reflection, but product is very uniform, no streaks, very clear.
Crude is from ethanol, very sweet, smooth and high quality from complete cold extraction, with 70% yields.
Tincture is going through vigorous filtration process with final filter at 0.1micron.
All volatiles are gone long time ago.
Basically its happening with different feeds and at different times, so its not related to pre-process, it is most likely strictly RFE related. If I process the same feed on short path my color is very light amber.
I have tried running at 200 rmp overnight, is about to see the results.
I think spitting is definitely is taking place and thus contaminating my output.
What is recommended overhead speed for the spinner on RFE?
It is it possibly that running spinner at very high speeds of something like 700-800rpm will eliminate spitting?
I am also thinking on running crude head stripping and see at what speeds i will have black spits on my condenser.
I ran these units for a few years my SOP is floating around here and a couple members still use it or versions of it. If you want a quick free call I’d be happy to give you some tips and tricks but for the most part it’s pre processing techniques and how it was extracted that have the largest influence on color. Smell can usually be distilled out unless it’s sulfur compounds.
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I just wanna highlight how good of a dude you are for this one. People need to pay more appreciation to this type of stuff 
big emphasis on the fact that you’re willing to do it for free just to help
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Thanks. I’m not a consultant anymore just an equipment salesguy. My info is yalls info, which goes without saying none of it is groundbreaking.
There’s a handful of people who have reached out to me from here who I’ve basically consulted free for months - sadly since it was through signal I lost contact. Some of those guys were cool af.
This place has been great to me.
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how do i call?
Respectfully, I think this is incorrect.
I believe the center pic with only an external condenser is called a wiped film evaporator and the right pic with the internal condenser is called a short path evaporator. Short path evaporators are considered a subset of wiped film evaporators and they’re both subsets of thin film evaporators.
I’m not sure but I think that’s what the three bubbles at the top of the pic are meant to represent. Short path fits in the smallest oval, then wiped film is the middle encompassing short path and then thin film is the largest, encompassing them both.
The term rolled, I believe, does indeed refer to the way the film is applied (blades vs rollers).
Both the center and right pic setups could be rolled or wiped or something else (I think they also offer blocks?).
I can’t access the paper you linked but I went to the first Chem Tech presentation on hemp oil processing back in 2015 and I’m going off my binder of info from that.
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From the paper: Large circle “Thin film evaporators / Falling film evaporators and degassers”, medium circle “Wiped film Evaporators”, small circle “Short path evaporators”
So yeah - you’re right there.
From the Center Image, its called a RFL
"The RFL series of laboatory WFE systems (RFL signifies “Rolled film Laboraotry) are typically configured similar to the above ilustration.”
All of the units CTS makes use rollers. From the paragraph below the short path “Similar to the RFL evaporator, rollers are used as an alternative to wiper blades with the added benefit of additional evaporative surface and an agitation effect which facilitates the evaporative process. Note the condenser is internal to the evaporator reducing molecular impedance to high vacuum.”
text me at 562-521-4057. We’ll set up 30 mins or so.
If there is strictly a pH issue with the oil totally unrelated to the wiper itself, when you dissolve the crude into ethanol, then add citric acid, if the issue is pH then the dark oil will instantly turn light yellow. If you want to do this test you only need a tiny amount to check. You could dissolve 100mg in 1ml of ethanol, but if you can’t measure that small you can do 1gram in 10 ml or less of ethanol then sprinkle in citric acid.
Whenever I’ve had color issues and I’m not sure if it’s a single issue or even multiple issues, doing this will essentially isolate the focus to the front half or back half of the process.
I while back I couldn’t stop making purple and red disty (water clear in the cart) but the bulk jars were making the owners weirded out. Did a quick acid check on a gram and the color corrected itself. Then I dissolved another gram in pentane and washed it with water, and the water turned piss yellow. Turned out the extractor who was supplying the wholesale bulk crude in buckets for me was re-using his ethanol over and over without re-proofing and it was less than 160 proof for his runs, pulling out tons water solubles.
Figure it might be a rolled film issue, but it sucks chasing distillation and wasting time when that’s not the problem. Helps to be confident even the crude is not an issue if someone tries to help and is like “oH nO, iT’s tOtAlLlY yOuR pH BrO”.
If you have any activated alumina and activated magnesium silicate there are some other little tests you can do too on your raw materials.
It’s just so rare thin films don’t work when they are mechanically sound.
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