Running an iron fist ex40. Solvent tank jacketed and is Chilled -5 degrees . That’s the coldest it will get. Columns also have jackets we ran chiller through them but we load our biomass in socks that slide in the column and they are so frozen to the column we can not pull them out. I have a few ideas but would rather not waste time if any one could help me out . Thanks everyone!!!
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What’s the question?
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I think hes not heating his columns in between runs for solvent recovery. I would suggest running a heater with the same fluid as the chiller so you can close valves to the chiller and then crank open the valves on the heater so you can heat the columns and recover the trapped solvent from the top of the column.
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or maybe dont chill your material columns at all. if you can dismount and mount them easily on your system just keep them in a chest freezer at -20c and just run hot water in the jacket. But even without the freezer if youre injecting -60c solvent or so then your material columns wont have any issue staying cold. running recucluating hot water through the column recovers your solvent and i also think its easier to unpack the columns if you arent using a sleeve. for the hot water i just have a sous vide in a bucket with a submersible water pump …
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I’d recommend you just keep the chiller on the solvent tank, and use a coil in between the solvent tank and column for injection. Put it in dry ice and isopropyl. If you throttle it as it goes in column it will easily get you down to -40. Use hot water to recover solvent in your columns. Get a water heater either a tankless or one with a tank from home depot and circulate water with a hydroponics pump. It works surprisingly well.
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i also run a B pot with a three way valve. one line goes to my main collecting column and the other goes to my B. and i just switch to recovering that at the end of the run of my main collecting. and then i empty whatever hash is left over in my b pot every ten runs or so…
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Yes chilling injecting solvent is the most ideal way but op didn’t state that was an issue for them, if you use Propylene glycol and water instead of iso it doesn’t evap on you 
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My bad bro, I thought i tagged the original poster. Also i actually have that laying around ima give a try. Thank you.
Im with @Intergalactic, plumbing your columns so you can heat them as well as chill them is the ideal solution. I’ve used Dynalene HC-50 for this, but if you’re only getting to -5C (F?) you can probably get away with a 50% glycol mix.
another option is to just pull a vacuum on the column jackets…and recirculate warm gas (post evap) to drive the last of your solvent out of the columns. that was how we ran the ex40 I got to play with.
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freezing your socks to the walls requires water…which you are presumably pulling from the atmosphere. reducing the time that your chilled columns are open to atmosphere should go a long way towards solving that particular issue.
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which could presumably be addressed by using more solvent…
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Bingo . Yes that’s our problem and that was kind of my plan just wasn’t sure if there is a better way or not
Makes sense thanks man!
The columns are huge and just stay on the rack of the machine . That’s the only reason we use socks pretty much
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Ya we have had a vacuum pulled on the jackets but how would I recirculate warm solvent vapors through the columns ?
When you’re initially heating the columns do you any impurities(darker color) that drip into your collection vessel?
Its more than likely fats, -5 isnt very cold. Adding warmer solvent isnt very good no matter what. Your just going to futher pollute your product. Warming your your column will help maybe. Not sure if it would make the fats more sticky.
instead of pumping back into your tank, you run the warm gas from the pump outlet to the tops of the columns. I don’t know what you would have to change on your plumbing because I’ve not run a stock Ex40.
I’ve seen the same trick attempted on an ETS, but the column jackets were being kept at -50C, so (imo) it wasn’t nears as efficient at clearing the columns.
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Warming the columns would help slide out their stuck socks, definitely not adding more warm gas that would just be a mess.
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