Eden, Waters, or PSICO?
is MRX the way to go?
Apeks or Infinity?
Which extractor is for me?
This Druk works for home defence
And I’m still sitting on the fence.
Edit: Vitallis or an Azoth then
and Ethanol can be your friend.
And I’m still sitting on the fence.
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Without bashing anyone or anything, can we chat about machine preferences?
All those listed are of course CO2 machines, but any discussion of which CO2 machine to purchase should also explore the question of “Why Co2”? don’t ya think?
I’d love to get my hands on the Evolabs machine, and I’ve been trying to get into a PSICO lab to take a peak for months now.
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I think co2 as a primary extraction solvent is unfeasible and I am a co2 extractor, I think the future is using cryogenic ethanol for extraction then co2 and co2 expanded ethanol for purification.
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Yeah, I see you’ve been doing it for years, have at least a PSICO2 machine, and really like the idea of using CO2 as the second pass.
I’ve read your post on the subject, and wish I felt qualified to comment.
I’ve about got my head around it, but wouldn’t dream of trying to sell it as an equipment list yet. I’ve tried pushing for a PSICO2 machine, and I believe I tried to talk Matthias into connecting us so I could see how you perform your magic with his machine.
So far I’ve only seen his original working prototype about 3-4 years ago, and his desktop prototype in the last month or so.
His machines seem to be unique to me. At least as far as flow rate goes. Telling the investors they need a CO2 machine and all the gear to winterize the output then running the process backwards would be awesome.
I did a cryo-EtOH run in my PX1 just to bamboozal the boss at one point (and stay within the law while still seeming to comply with his instructions)
Made sure to have him look at the pretty color through the sight-glass during recovery.
Yea I think they have the best cost to performance ratio in the co2 market, but ethanol is so cheap i dont think anything can compete. but going from ethanol crude to product still requires solvents and rotovacs and its a big pain. I believe co2 machines could be fed ethanol crude instead of trim and substantially increase their effective capacity.
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I understand post-processing with a second solvent, and I agree on the scaling factors for both CO2 and EtOH.
Would the PSICO machine need a modified collector/fractionator to make that work?
Or could you just run a standard cannabinoid profile followed by a terp capture?
Pretty sure you were suggesting something more complex than that, remember having to wrap my head around solvent expansion and anti-solvents to try and keep up. Should probably throw some more cannabis at the problem and see if re-reading makes any more sense.
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This is the first place I went when you suggested post-processing QWET with CO2.
if all a machine did was replace winterizing in a way that didnt require the time and expensive equipment that it take to strip ethanol and also had pressure to assist filtration rates I think it would be valuable. And i know from personal experience about how you can filter and fractionate using co2 and i thought about a way to maximize such a systems efficiency and that lead me to realize how many potential application my idea had after reading a few of the thesis’s i posted and one of those things is advanced chromatography using pressure/temp or molar ratio. with some secret sauce thrown in to maximize separation in ways they never do analytically cause it would effect elution order or weird shaped distributions which we dont really care about for this application then just in 2018 some papers came out that had very good and very cannabis-analogous results and i actually could know is not just a theory
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Yea I know Ive also looked lol. I really got inspired when i started watching @Beaker"s videos on dcvc on youtube. everybody always says chromatography is only analytical or requires giant columns but then i saw him doing 30 grams in a small-ish funnel and i was all lik whaaaa why does nobody talk about this cause separation is primarily only about the ratio of length to width meaning something lik my machine could do hundreds of grams theoretically. and everything i’ve found and tried is supportive so far especially with the secrets sauce stuff like this countercurrent stuff which is a rabbit whole of its own lol
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The engineering around centrifuging liquid CO2 to pull the ethanol out is way out of my league, but just packing the column with chromatography media I could play with.
So is that a vote for PSICO or “none of the above”?
Not to get offtopic, but an aside, Ive read of people using DCVC with Kg+ of material in a single load!(not cannabis resin)
a column the size of this co2 machine’s material vessel could do multiple kg’s at a time probably especially if u take steps to maximize separation
DCVC is perfect for scaling and it might be simpler than it appears - at least for a pilot sized set up.
This is my latest funnel for DCVC. I have one taller but the taller one is too tall for DCVC type loads. You just do not need long columns when you are vacuuming the column dry between solvent gradients. This is why you can process so much in DCVC compared to other Liquid Chromatography methods.
This column can do seps on about an ounce or so and it runs in about a half hour or less and depends on how fast I can collect fractions really. The actual run if not stopped to collect fractions is 5-10 minutes at most. The time needed is distance travelled and stopping to collect fractions and not that it is an ounce. A half ounce takes the same time.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071FKB4V1/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
This is the gel I have run now for a long time from my order history;
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OYSTLR2/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Now imagine how much you could run in this funnel below!!! I would only be guessing but you would not dry load lolz. Wet loading onto standard silica is pretty easy really because of a simple fact; standard silica gel 60 does not pass cannabinoids dissolved in hexane alone. So when wet loading I disolve the compound in a bare minimum of hexane (room temp only) and load it onto a packed column of silica gel 60 wet packed with hexane. So you can load a lot and let it even out without worrying about diffusion into the column. Once the ethyl acetate gradients start then it begins to run. Wow I could do a shitload of dewaxed crude on a column like this in about thirty minutes, then when flushed it would be ready to run again.
https://www.amazon.com/Kohstar-40Joint-Buchner-porosity-sintered/dp/B06WWD15XZ/ref=sr_1_37?ie=UTF8&qid=1521888047&sr=8-37&keywords=buchner+funnel
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I’d definitely be interested to hear anyones reviews or info on the waters sfe c02 extractor. I haven’t been able to find much about it, especially from people who have used it in our industry.
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I have run a waters machine for about 4 years now and have experimented with it a lot. I’m always down to do some new experiments as well or answer any questions.
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In my opinion Waters make an awesome pilot scale system but aren’t super efficient for full on production. But definitely depends on how much you plan on extracting per month and what kind of product you’re looking to make. Azoth Solutions make what appear to be the best machines in the market at the moment but I say that without the actual experience of running one but based on their knowledge of the subject and overall design. Just my opinion though.
waters is the best positioned for what im talking about since most of their products are chromatography based already
Totally agree with you on that, a 5L Waters would definitely make the most sense and be the easiest for retrofitting into a SFC setup. I was moreso replying to @Griffin.Labs about Waters units for full on extraction, sorry if that wasn’t clear.
On that note though I would also like to play around with doing some SFC at some point, seems like the best step forward for co2 extraction. The current units we use wouldnt be very easy to retrofit but kind of keeping an eye out for a used 5L for cheap in good condition to play with.
there r other ways to maximize co2 machines value then just SFC. neat co2 fractionation has alot of research behind it and adsorbent filtration can be done faster and easier cause of the pressure. and they can all be performed with relatively few modifications
countercurrent doesnt mean centrifugation, i know i was confused for a long time about that too. columnar countercurrent doesnt move or spin at all