do you really think thats what I mean? that I believe I am incapable of working with methanol without poisoning myself? I work with methanol every day. I don’t use it to winterize because I am not an idiot. I could. I could also pour a bottle of nitric, but would I unless I absolutely need it? I can tell you don’t have any sort of legitimate formal training by the way you speak about this. you think you are “good” cause you haven’t poisoned yourself to your knowledge? you do realize that methanol is a cumulative toxin, correct? as in, one day you wake up blind. what did that link king of the kush posted say? 500mg is the daily tolerance level? you realize thats like two drops?
Now there’s you, slaving over a 50lb pot of near boiling methanol and crude as it dissolves… tell me, do you know what methanol smells like? i know for a fact you do.
What kind of setup are your using for your CRC column?
I’ve been debating building one and using nitrogen to push pentane through it but if I can get good results with heptane like you are doing I’d rather go that route.
I have a 4x12 inch spool I pack my powders in with a screen on top followed by a ring and stainless scrubbies to help prevent channeling. I hook that up to a 4x36” spool, fill it up and push with nitrogen (used to use compressed air with in-line dryers) at 60 PSI. At the bottom of it all is a 5 micron sintered SS filter from BVV. I recommend you get your sintered disk welded in, as the BVV ones are giving most people issues. I haven’t had any fines blow past mine yet, but with the way it’s warping I know that day is coming sooner rather than later, so it’s worth it to do it right the first time. From bottom to top I have B80 clay, silica, another thin layer of B80, a thin layer of carbon, and activated alumina on top. I was using magnesol, but it seemed to be robbing my yields.
Yes, heptane. Supposedly cannabinoids are less soluble in pentane than heptane. Haven’t seen any hard data on that, but regardless, heptane is much safer and cheaper.
Couple things here. Safety protocol is going to depend on your frequency of exposure to methanol. Are you winterizing twice a month in a garage style lab for your own head stash? Cool, you probably don’t have to worry much about “waking up blind” (in reality it would be a gradual decline in vision combined with other serious symptoms, but hey, We’re trying to scare people here apparently, so for our purposes, I guess everything just goes black). So you can probably get away with being sloppy with your PPE and such. I wouldn’t personally recommend it, but you do you boo.
Now if we’re talking about a commercial lab where exposure could very well be constant, that’s a different story. Heat and dissolve your crude in closed reactors with vapors either being condensed or exhausted outside. Filter under a fume hood or with ventilation that is replacing the air VERY frequently. Or issue scba systems for employees, but ventilation will probably be cheaper. And above all, portable gas monitors should be worn by all personnel handling methanol to ensure PPM levels do not exceed 200.
Is that good enough for you @YeahBet? I figured this would all be common sense, but I guess you assume folks are too retarded to do this research on their own because they don’t have a fancy degree.
Now if this sort of comment was made instead of things like “methanol is slightly toxic” “we arent drinking it har har” “ive winterized in meoh and im fine” basically multiple threads full of a couple people advocating hard for using a much more dangerous solvent in such a flippant manner… i wouldnt have ever jumped in. but thats not what has been goin on here.
now seriously, you just went off on all the ppe and equipment you’ll need for it in order to show you’re just as smart as an actual chemist (which was not necessary) doesnt all that scary ppe and equipment you just mentioned drive my (our) point home? i mean really, people read these threads, and if they see a “verified consultant” (LOL) saying all this shit and no mention of hey, this shit will fucking kill you with a serious warning, theyre just gonna go for it. you all are being incredibly irresponsible with this. why do you think theres huge warnings on everything thats even remotely dangerous? because some people dont know! yall dont even know what you dont know…
I’ll be honest, I got fucking methanol in my mouth/hands the other day on accident ( obviously i didn’t swallow it). I called poison control and they said if you dont get a headache you’re fine.
3 days later I’m not blind and I went to the doctors and they said I dont have any signs of poisoning.
That’s for the processor to decide for themselves after a careful cost/benefit analysis. Personally, I believe taking all of those measures to use methanol while keeping myself and my employees safe is well worth the cost and risk. Seriously, that’s not that “crazy” of PPE, and should probably be on hand anyway in a hemp processing lab where working with pentane is going to also be expected further down the line. Not only does methanol work much better than ethanol at removing waxes from my experience, but it allows me to move straight into LLE without having to recover solvent or waste alcohol that is $60/gallon. This, in turn, allows for faster devolatilization, faster distillation runs, cleaner smelling distillate, and only needing a single pass for high quality final product.
In my opinion, if you are a consultant and not at least informing your customer of the benefits of methanol winterization, you are doing them a tremendous disservice.
Hey @cyclopath, thanks for the feedback. I’ve done a whole lot of reading per your advice and am not in the first stage of winterizing my Ethanol crude. I placed it a freezer for 48 hours reaching -24c, but noticed there isnt a whole lot of fat precipitation. i can see bits of fat lining the jar, but not tremendous amount like when i winterize BHO(usually i’d see a layer of fat in my BHO winterize) Could it be that most fats were removed during the extraction method? Im using 190 proof ethanol and bought my Ethanol crude - i did not extract it. Here is a video:https://future4200.com/uploads/default/original/3X/6/4/64b8a26de111d3371733863386dc11ac9f8e0b55.MOV
Can you pack it in dry ice overnight? Get it that cold. Filter through filters that are also that cold. -24c seems not cold enough for EtOH lipid precipitation.
Did a first pass filtration with Buchner funnels today at -40 crude. The Buchner funnel was at -26 when we began filtering. Letting it sit on dry ice over night to do a second filter pass.
I thought it was normal for Ethanol crude separation? With BHO, the fat separation that I’ve seen is more green/yellowish. I’m doing a second run this am to see if there is any further separation. keep you guys posted
