Not sure about recovery. About 25gm of cellulase would be used for a kilogram of biomass.
I am not sure if the enzymes can be recovered, but yeast is alive, so no problem there. I am not a brewer, so have limited knowledge of their processes.
I would assume that brewer’s techniques would come into play, with yeast recovery. Mixing fresh biomass with even a bit of old will introduce the yeast, bu I assume fresh enzymes would be needed for each batch of new stuff.
It may be possible to develop a continuous process, where you just keep adding water, and biomass at one end, and draining off crude (low percentage) ETOH at the other.
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I really appreciate your use of analogies though I feel that your point may need re-iteration.
The only reason one would want to endevour such a laborious process (breaking open cells) is if they are processing waste material. If one is extracting from buds/nugs then it would be counterproductive to refined cannabinoid extraction. Even for trim material it would seem a needless pain to go that route, assuming we are after the common THC/CBD+terps mix.
Let’s really drive that point home…The most commonly sought after cannabis desirables are found in the trichromes which are most often on the exterior of the plant cells and in highest concentrations AFAIK. So going past the outer layer (where all the goodies, or most, are) and diving into the dirt for a few shiny pebbles (or grabbing just a tiny amount of remnant desirables) but also making the mix dirtier than if you just took the outer layer… well that just seems silly.
Still not sure what exactly OP is going (target desirables).
Edit: Just read recent posts and I like the idea of converting spent biomass into useable ethanol. a lot.
I know that the trichs are the primary site for the psychoactive stuff. Certainly a quick wash will grab those, and the product will be cleaner. However, in order to further research, it is necessary to take the hard way at times.
Post-processing makes more sense now, because separation techniques are still crude. However, new discoveries, with both techniques and compounds could change that. Entourage effect is real, and we are just now figuring out how and why. It is quite possible that current biomass waste contains chemicals and compounds that are valuable, but are being discarded.
For a plant that has been used for thousands of years, there is insufficient current science. A few shiny pebbles of something new might be all that are needed to make it all worth your while
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Gotta admire those that choose the narrow path (difficulty: hard). If you really want ALL that the plant has to offer then enzymatic digestion of cellulose sounds like the right way to go about it. Of course, however, requiring post-processing to isolate out your target desirable compounds.
On the subject of waste-repurposing, a friend of mine recently suggested that I re-purpose the wax waste from my extractions into a crude intended for use in cosmetic industry. I haven’t yet looked into it but the idea of turning trash into treasure is nothing new. Chances are someone is already doing it…and if not, then you should start immediately.
As far as repurposing the waxes…absolutely possible. Best use is as a cream additive. Those filtered solids are silky smooth. You can also re-dissolve them in new clean ETOH, do another winterization, maybe get a little more out.
Enzymatic degradation of cellulose is nothing new. It is used to get olive oil. It is the cannabis industry that has not been using it.
Depending on the weight of biomass processed, and the volume of ETOH used for each extraction run, you should be able to produce all your solvent in-house, just by digesting the waste. Producing ETOH comes with its own federal laws and issues, if you sell it. If you just produce for in-house usage, you would probably get by without having to get licensed.
The digestion process is similar to brewing beer, and does require tight temperature and pH control, and time. It would be easy to put a vat of waste biomass aside each day, throw in a few things, then get ethanol a few days later, plus an interesting slurry of other stuff that was not affected by the cellulase. The solids remaining after the digestion could also be run through an extraction process, to test for active or desirable compounds.
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If I understand correctly, the cellulase will catalyze the breaking down of cellulose into sugar. This sugar would then have activated yeast added to it and set to specific pH, temperature and time conditions. Then you will likely end up with an 80 proof ethanol, which has to be distilled in order to reach 180-190 proof (or 200 proof by fitlering through 3A/4A/ProofUp Molecular Sieve Beads). Even if you don’t have a basic vacuum distillation glassware set, but have a rotary evaporator handy then you can load that and “recover” your freshly harvested ethanol (80 proof) and have yielded some 180-190 proof ethanol and some water left over in the boiling flask. For an operation whose only available rotovap(s) are reserved for the next few months to do solvent recovery from daily operations (extractions/post-processing), might have to bite the bullet and buy a dedicated “distilling” rotovap to offset future ethanol costs. Depending on how much biomass you cycle through, if its a small order, then a stovetop alcoho distilling pot would be a cost-effective choice. It would seem sensible to select the rotovap capacity that would best match the expected alcohol yield from your regular biomass waste post-enzymatic-processing. If you’re going to do it, do it right from the start. I bet it isn’t too long before some folk from this forum band together to start a few cannabis-waste-biomass-processing operations… if that hasn’t happened already.
If you aren’t an established operation and doing solo work then it would be more cost effective to get a copper distiller set. Basic set consisting of the main boiling pot and attachments for the hot vapors to be condensed through for collection. These pots sit on your stove and have a hose coming off of their lids for feeding the cooling/condensing alcohol into a collection pot. I saw recently sold on wish.com home distillation kits from sizes 8L up to 35L, ranging in price from $130-$320 CAD respectively.
Really, though, one should determine for their own operation whether or not this solution is a worthwhile effort. It could be that the additional time it costs you for processing the waste biomass into useable primary solvent outweighs the cost of just buying ethanol from a licensed seller/producer. Perhaps a little cheap labor could solve that “time cost” though.