@Tech1145 can you tell us more about your separator? Maybe some more pix pls?
Wow. Lots to answer. Appreciate it. Came back to this thread to post an update.
Using an old 4” jacketed column and 1/2” sip tube I welded to the 4” cap, I created an expansion chamber .
Unfortunately, our water heater runs at 170 for our various heating coils and jackets.
This temp was too hot passing through the jacket of the 4” column/expansion chamber. I had it installed pre-48” desiccant, post HP. First stop after the HP.
It seems as though the high temps were evaporating solvent soooo fast, that it created a lot of back pressure and gas had a hard time leaving the expansion chamber.
I need to tone down the water temp to the jacket to rest rhis theory. Will address this week.
Nitro… BexUse it’s what we always used. And now have a badassss nitro generator. Only goes up to 110psi. But we supplement that with shots from bottles when necessary. The generator and compressor so mostttt of the legwork.
Ps. Who said anything about crude? 
Been contemplating using a liquid with a high boiling point and no flavor in the bottom for eh expansion chamber. Kind of like a water bong conceptually.
So far. My research has concluded that glycerine would be the best choice. 290F boiling point. And no taste/smell.
Thoughts?
@JonaaronbrayAzoth onaaronbrayAzoth
@FicklePickle
@Sermac
1 Like
I think this heated expansion chamber may be doing more harm than good.
It is always best to put the heat into the liquid solution in the collection pot, not the vapor after it has been liberated. You’ll just have to remove the extra heat from the vapor in your post-compressor heat exchanger and this will not really speed up your recovery. What you are doing with the heated expansion tube is adding superheat to your solvent vapor.
Did you ever check the pressure drop across the 48" mol sieve tube?
I would bet the heated expansion tube is creating excess pressure and the large mol sieve is acting as a restriction to flow.
Haha, no one, that was my ASSumption.
Keep crushing it man!
I would personally stay far away from this idea.
A LOT could go wrong. It will also require frequent maintenance and it’s not really necessary IMO, but I like where your head is at.
My advice would be to ditch the 48" mol sieve and heated expansion tube entirely. Add a couple liquid/vapor separators (multiple to be safe) and make sure you or your workers don’t fill the collection pot up too full and/or get a bigger collection pot.
If you want to speed up your vapor generation, add more internal heat exchangers to your collection pot (in contact with liquid).
If you want even more heat, I have contemplated running the liquid through a tube-in-tube heat exhanger after the columns but before the collection pot. If you are running a giant collection pot you could even run a recirculating setup with a liquid-safe pump that feeds from the pot to the tube-in-tube and back to the pot. Similar to what Photon and Cyclopath have done with their recirculating CRC setup.
1 Like
that was exactly why I threw a 3x18" tube and shell on top of my collection tanks this time around…they’re currently dismounted, and may already have found another job, but I’ve been told the rack mounts for my liquid pumps are ready for pick up Monday, so it’s time to explore this.
1 Like
the amount of heat exchanged depends of flow rate as well. so just putting a needle valve on the hot water inlet (or outlet) should allow you to dial things back (…and many of us use ball valves for feathering all the time…).
1 Like
Appreciate the tkme man. But I think this might’ve gotten off track. Not trying to increase recovery times by reheating vapor. Instead trying to expand the vapor harder to ditch the oil making its way in.
I’ve concluded several things:
1.) xtractor depot designed a cool looking honeypot. However one that is little more than cool looking.
Having recovery ports along the curved roof’ results in droplets kf solvent(and obviously some dissolved oil) to me sucked into the recovery line.
This is the primary source of the oil in the mol sieve and eventually the pump.
Next… the 1/2” recover port off the pot is too small a diameter. Using my vague physics background(read as: extensive googling background) I have determined ther a thinner entry point for the vacuum. Especially one like this… with app. 1.5” of 1/2” pipe before the hose attaches, results in a longer, deeper cone of ‘accessibility’ for the vacuum’. Hopefully that makes a little sense… if the entry were a 2” tie clamp… it would result in a wider, shallower, range of accessibility for the pump.
Soo. Did a couple changes and swapped out a flat sight glass with an in line sight glassthsr doubles as the port of recovery. Even took it a step further than that and used mesh gaskets on both sides of the sight glass and filled it with glass wool.
Thanks everyone
sounds like a solid move.
does it still function as a sight glass in this configuration (glass wool doesn’t seem particularly “see through”)?
a tri-clamp elbow (90 degree) with a stainless scrubbie or two in it is a trick I’ve seen used to help drop the entrained liquid.
No, not really. I can post a pic in a day or so. However I am contemplating taking some glass wool out and. Taking an old 4” gasket… folding it up, and pushing the glas wool to the top half of the sight glass. Since it’s only sucking in one direction it mighttt stay there, and allow for decent visuals on the first half of the glass… while still filtering the second half