My question is what is the more efficient extraction method when trying to extract cannabinoids AND terpenes for a distillate product.
There are many ways to skin a cat.
Let’s say your extracting 30 lbs of biomass in 3 columns,
If you were to be using fresh solvent over each column (manifold), and you’re running 10:1 for solvent:biomass. You get 20 lbs of solvent in your initial fill, What if the 1st lb injected was completely saturated by the end of the column which is great, 100% efficiency.
BUT what if the 3rd or even the 7th lb is only 70% saturated? That means you’re sending unsaturated solvent to your collection and having to evap/condense some solvent that never did any work.
I know at some point we are picking up undesirables. BUT if you have a great post processing system in place that can remediate and filter out any undesirables after the fact can a daisy chain system actually be more efficient by ensuring your solvent is as saturated as possible before utilizing your heating and cooling systems for said solvent?
An option for manifolding could be soaking the initial column, whilst filling the other two and letting the others soak during the active cycle of the first and so forth.
FIrst off, 20lbs of solvent over 10lbs of biomas is 2:1 not 10:1, I like to run at least 5:1 , solvent:biomass when not running CRC at least 6:1 when running CRC.
If you have three 10lb columns of biomass in daisy chain formation you’d need to run 150lbs of solvent over the biomass. This also will significantly increases your cooling and heating needs as cooling and then recovering 150lbs is far more involved than delivering and recovering 50lbs of solvent. I can’t imagine it being faster or cheaper than running manifold style. You also can no longer be swapping socks during recovery as you could with a manifold style.
Not to mention In a legal operation the logistics of having your fire marshall approve your building for 150lbs of butane/propane transfer indoors onsite is almost an impossible pipe dream.
That is the initial fill. I cant quite fit 50lbs of solvent as well as 10lbs of biomass in a single column.
After the filling of the first column, I would be able to fill the other 2 columns individually. This allows each column X amount of time to soak.
After each column is full I can begin cycling solvent over the first column, I can either
A. Flush with the full 40lbs of excess solvent to hit my ratio,
or
B. Send another 20 lbs and allow to soak whilst i flush columns 2, and 3 respectively. and go back around to give a final flush.
My ASJ approved more than 200#s so no worries there.
If your goal is to run each 20lb of solvent over all three columns sequentially, and hit each 10lb column 3x with increasingly LESS saturated solvent, you’re trying to describe a form of counter current extraction.
Tried it a couple of times, works ok, nothing spectacular that we saw.
Decided that the (fastest enabling) plumbing made operation way more complicated, and also made it possible (demonstrated) for the operator to get saturated solvent into the fresh solvent tank.
Automated might work well. correct plumbing involves separate manifolds & inlets for micella vs fresh solvent.
I don’t recall a discussion of this trick specifically for light hydrocarbons, but it has been explored, and you might find insights if you can locate those discussions (try “counter current” and “counter flow”.
I liked percolation, but didn’t spend enough time playing to find the sweet spot.
So are larger columns better or worse? Is there an ideal sized column for best extraction effiency? I figure that would depend on solute, solvent, temps and pressures. But if all the values were to be the same would it be best to run 30lbs in a single column or 10lbs in 3 columns with a manifold?
What’s the difference between running the 3- 10 lb columns Daisy chained or one 30lb column? Because when you are daisy chaining columns, you are essentially extending or expanding the size of your column, correct?
You can the get same extraction efficiency with both setups, but dividing the 30 lbs into ‘mini columns,’ and extracting in countercurrent manner like cyclopath mentioned can be done with less solvent. Tradeoff for running more mini columns is solvent savings vs. increased labor requirements. Idea is to always push your most fortified solution through fresh biomass, first, and then follow up with decreasing concentration solution and finally with fresh solvent.
I never ran a CLS, but you could effect the same kind of extraction, maybe less efficiently than daisy chaining due to labor requirements, by using only one biomass column and collecting effluent into a few ‘wash tanks.’ Establish a concentration gradient in your wash tanks, then reload biomass column and push the concentrated wash through the new column first (followed by 2, 3, and maybe some fresh solvent).