Yes there can can impurity’s that “drip” out, but this is not a up right loop this is a large rack mounted machine, so any impurity’s that drip out are evaporated before that column is used again.
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I can help you out. I have run EX20’s and EX40’s. Sounds like your chiller can not get cold enough to keep everything frozen, or you are thawing at some point in your process. Are you working with dry material, or fresh frozen? Are your material socks frozen before you drop them in the columns? How long are they sitting in the columns before you send solvent through them? Do you have a pre injection coil? What kind of chiller(s) are you using on what functions? If you get everything cold enough you shouldn’t have any thawing during the run and socks should be easy to pull out after the run.
What color are your socks? How sticky is the material coming out of them? What type of material:solvent ratios are you running?
An EX40 has something like 20 gallons capacity for its four jacketed columns. One empty jacketed 6"48" is over a hundred pounds, they are not easy to move on and off the machine. They have 150lb solvent capacity and need far more power for heating than can be accomplished with a sous vide heater. These systems aren’t designed to mount and dismount columns to be swapped in and out of freezers. I ran one with an Huber Unistat 815 and it took several hours to cool from room temp down to say -50F. I would not suggest heating these columns as it would significantly increase the cycle time per run waiting for them to heat and then get back down to temperature for the next run. It’s faster to use either nitrogen or hot gas to push solvent through the columns.
Smart! This is a great way to go about things. I did this with an EX20 I set up at my last spot. Used an old EX4 collection vessel as the B pot. Put tees below each column and valve on each side so I could direct solution to the main vessel with a N2 or hot gas push, and then use the B pot to recover remaining vapors out of the material. Achieved over 90% recovery rates on cold solvent / chilled columns with the B pot method. Great for throughput, pulling columns down to 0psi or into a slight vacuum, swapping out, and sending the next, while the collection vessel remains at full boil.
Only one of the EX40’s I ran had a hot gas loop stock, from the factory. Close off valve to heat exchanger inlet, and open valve on the material column manifold. Adjust pump speed if applicable and open valve to column. Other systems which didn’t have this functionality from the factory have been fairly straightforward to modify. Sometimes you can even replace an elbow with a tee, or a tee with a cross, nearly a drop-in modification. Feel free to take pictures and ask for help on specifics.
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I was referring to running a heater and chiller along side with valves so one could switch back and forth from them since chillers take so long to get down to temperature.
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I see what you are getting at, that the chiller itself is being kept at a low temperature so it should warm up the thermal fluid faster. I agree with the theory, but theorize due to the large mass of steel, solvent, weed, and water we now want to heat and chill within the recovery time of our process, that a very large amount of chilling power would be needed. With a seriously powerful heater and chiller, it may indeed be possible. To do it in a reasonable amount of time (shorter than the run time of 100-150lbs of solvent) would require a lot more chilling power than I’ve ever had on hand. 
Simplifying a bit and using non jacketed columns is another way to get the material warmer as time goes on during a run and it requires a lot less money in ancillary gear.
Yes but with the downside of not being able to warm material unless it’s from a hot loop from evaporator, I’m sure 4 columns at -40c could be warmed up in a reasonable time with 6k watts of heating power, I do not chill my columns but I have 2 6x36 but do pump -40c solvent through them for a while, and I am able to bring to 37c in about 10 mins with 1k of heating power
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yeah that makes sense on the iron fist. one sous vide can heat two of my 6x42 bizzy bee columns without an issue to where they are hot to the touch on the outside of the jacket… and for those guys too i can easily mount and dismount both of those 6x42 jacketed columns within a minute by myself in and out of a freezer if i chose to freeze them…
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ya they are just to heavy. maybe i should just use an injection coil and then they wont thaw out and stick to the columns. our chiller only goes to -5
sorry man. my socks are just sticking to the columns so i cant pull them out. that is the problem. dont know if i just need to run my solvent colder with an injection coil or just use warm water in the jackets to recover all the solvent and then pull the socks out. the ex40 is just so big it might take to much time to do that. but i need to be running colder for sure.
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i am running 70/30 butane propane . fresh frozen. in a -30 walk in freezer. pull them out of freezer weigh socks. put them in right away still frozen. start clamping down columns .vacuum the whole system and then start injection. they might be thawing buy the time i start injection. no pre injection coil (trying to get one) socks come out clear usually but sometimes have yellow oil or fats at the bottom of the sock. dump out socks and weed is still kind of wet and sometimes sticky but usually not really
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Roger that. Next step, find out why the socks are sticking. Typically either water ice, or oil. If it’s oil, easy fix. Running more solvent across material or trying some different extraction techniques might solve the under-extraction issue. Do you soak? If so, at beginning of send, or after some solution’s made it into collection? You didn’t say your solvent ratio or amount sent, so I’m just guessing. If they usually come out fairly clean, you’re probably doing it right, if material is still coming out sticky, likely more left to extract. One way to know is send samples of post-extracted biomass at different wash ratios off for cannabinoid testing.
If it’s frozen with ice, that won’t fix it. To solve that issue you have to avoid the introduction of moisture. Could be an atmospheric contaminant, or a need to keep the material colder throughout your process. Storage freezer sounds cool, it’s the -5F on the columns where your material warms 25 degrees that sounds questionable. What is the quality of the fresh frozen oil run at -5F?
Some of this stuff is kinda basic common sense so forgive me if I’m going over things you already know… How long do the socks spend outside the freezer before cold solvent is being sent over them?
How clean is your gear? Much ice buildup?
Not sure how much you’d get at these temperatures… If you’re extracting warmer there might be more fats leaving the plant material and building up making it easy for socks to stick? Do you ever leave your system open to air allowing moisture to condense inside cold columns? Make sure you set lids on top once you’ve yanked a sock out, don’t leave things open to the air if you can help it. When I load socks I engage vacuum and pull atmosphere out as soon as possible, well before I’m reaching to reassemble clamps.
I’ve run many socks through 6x24" and 6x48" columns on IF systems. No warmer than -25F on the jackets. Some systems around -30 and some around -50. Some with open sleeves and dry ice. Both with, and without a pre injection coil. Solvent from ~ -30 to ~ -90. Never needed hot water to thaw, though I lose more cold solvent trapped in biomass than someone whos material is thawing out during the run. I’ve had maybe 10-15 stuck socks. Most of the them were on the EX40 around -50. Once or twice it was too little solvent sent and the remainder, too much fats and ice had accumulated to the walls of the columns making an easy surface for the socks to stick to. I got a 6" polypropylene bristle chimney brush from Rutland and that made it a lot easier to clean the walls and keep buildup down to keep things sliding smoothly.
Is there much condensation or ‘freezer burn’ on your socks before you drop them in? Hand broom / brush them before loading. The little 5 dollar hand broom / mini dust pans from Home Depot are great for this, and smacking the socks to empty.
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Boris is a smart guy. My understanding of thermodynamic concepts is miniscule compared to his knowledge. I think his columns have less mass than the Iron Fist columns which may present less of a load to heat and cool - so it can be done faster. And it makes the parts lighter and easier to move. Not sure on thickness of stainless; but the jacket size is smaller. 7" OD, if I recall. Iron fist does 8", and their jackets hold a LOT greater mass of heat transfer fluid. So there’s more weight in stainless on IF’s columns and a lot more of a ‘heat sink’ effect, which helps keep things cold if you want them to always stay cold… but is the opposite of helpful if we want to change things back and forth. Or move gear around.
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The bzb are also 6" inner 8" outer jackets. Water has better thermal conductivity as well so that helps. But you have to make sure to avoid freezing the fluid. We only use water to heat them if they are a collection vessel or material columns for cured material (to heat and recover residual butane from extraction)
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