We are setting up our first lab to make distillate from trim/popcorn.
This 50L stainless steel double jacketed reactor from Ledab seems to be our best choice for extraction.
I am trying to figure out what would be an optimal extraction process. I want to do cold wash mainly, and use vacuum + chiller in jackets.
Please help me figure out the details. Thanks
Have you read this Ethanol Extraction White Paper?
how about these two?
How do you get the cannabis in and out of that tube?
Do you know how much solvent you’re going to loose each time?
You do see the Best Value Vacs logo on that image right?
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Have you thought about agitation and how you will thoroughly mix the cannabis and solvent once in the vessel? How about filtration? Can you hook up a filter stack on the bottom? Also what are you going to use for your filtration receiving vessel to apply vacuum? Positive pressure may be something to consider.
If you don’t use filter bags it’s going to be messy. I’d look into some custom badges from Knight Corperation. Maybe some 75-100 micron bags. Also without a centrifuge the ethanol loss is going to be substantial.
Oh and BVV has that for $2500. I don’t recall if it includes valves for that price.
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If you have a hard time finding a quick solution I can help consult you to the exact process needed to achieve your cold Ethanol goal. From Extraction to solvent recovery to Distillation. Email me if you want to chat more about the details. Edreyeslive@yahoo.com
Hi buddy,
As China manufacturer, we could help u to set up a lab for u.
We could provide good offer for double glass reactor, rotovap, spd, chiller, vacuum pump and so on.
If u have the need, just dm me and send inquiry content, I will reply to it and provide good price
They do not sell the double jacketed SS reactor anymore due to no demand. Apparently the second jacket doesn’t improve ethanol extraction performance. We are going with the single jacketed SS reactor from BVV.
For chilling we are useing dry ice, until we can afford a big enough chiller.
What kind of pump and accessories do we need for dry ice method?
yep, it only effects the thermal efficiency of the setup and the amount of water that ends up on the lab floor.
the second jacket is definitely worth the price of admission.
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Read cyclopath’s white paper. It will answer 95% of all the questions you have.
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I browse BVV website.
As manufacturer, I could produce single or double layer ss reactor.
One thousand dollars cheaper than BVV.
If you need, pls dm me and I could send the quotation with best price to u
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Thank you for everyone’s input, especially thanks to cyclopath and his ethanol extraction white paper!
What would be a good way to keep our reactor’s jacket cooled? We will get a chiller later, but we just need to get going ASAP. I understand that we need a liquid pump to circulate our coolant. Do we just use ethanol cooled with dry ice?
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Best bet for diy jacket chilling is to use methanol or any other solvent/fluid that can hang with dry ice temps in a bucket filled with dry ice. Place a injection coil in that bucket and run your chilling fluid through the coil and into your vessels chilling jacket. You can find pumps (AODD, centrifugal, mag drive or alike) to move the chilling fluid. Just make sure they are rated for the temps and fluids used. Definitely going to be inefficient compared to a properly sized chiller but it will work. You can do the same thing to cool your extraction solvent.
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Thanks for the info Jay-TL!
Is this USA LAB -80°C 30L chiller sized appropriately to keep temperatures low enough? If not what would be a good chiller?
I don’t know because I don’t know the starting temp of your solvent, biomass and other variables. Also Im not going to do that math for free. But based on the specs USA Labs has posted its probably not going to maintain -80c. It might work for -50 to -60c. It is hard to say though because they do not provide a Kilo watt rating to see how much cooling capacity it has at given temperatures. To regulate at low temps like -80c you’ll have to go deep into the pocket book. TS Thermonics makes a dope chiller rated at 2,5kw @ -80c. Meaning with no load it can remove 2500watts of energy (heat) at -80c. Thats a shit ton of cooling capacity but it will cost you $64k. Mydax, Julabo, Huber, SP Scientific… are all in that 45-65k+ price range you can go cheaper but you get what you pay for. I do think -70c is doable for under $20k via cheaper Chinese manufactures. Lab1st.com (DL-12010) , Lanphan.com ( DLSB-100), and alike… USA Labs chiller is probably the same as one of these Chinese manufactures but at a steep mark up. Go straight to the manufacture and buy a few for the same price as 1 from USA labs.
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Do you really need -80c or even -70?
I think keeping at -60 with chilled biomass and ethanol should be good enough to make winterized product.
$12k we can afford, but 45-60k cannot.
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Depends on how dry your material is, soak times, post processing ect. It is still very possible to still pull some waxes and fats at -60 if your material has enough water content and if your soak times are too long. Buy what you can afford and build a solid process around that. It should work. Are you selling bulk winterized for distillate or product infusion? If so you should be fine. If you need further winterization you can snag a -86c So-Low chest freezer (size will be determined by your volume of extracts, the 27 cu ft can hold 3 15gal kegs) from USALabequipment.com for $13,199.00. Still cheaper than the 45-60k for the chiller. You will obviously bleed $$$ in time/effort but thats a little easier to deal with, especially as you build/scale.
Im hear to help, if you have questions or need hands on guidance let me know.
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For winterizing, what about using a -100c immersion chiller in a 90/10 methanol/water mix, then circulate that into a vacuum insulated double jacket reactor (inner jacket of course)? I’d imagine it wouldn’t be enough chilling power for a 50L reactor, but a 10L or 20L?
I’m just a bit skeptical of those cryo freezers. I keep hearing about them not lasting very long, and with that kind of investment I’d be pretty upset if it broke.
I have the same 50L reactor and have extracted with it. I’ve done soaking, vacuum driven cycling, and pumped cycling. I just put vacuum on both jackets, no chiller. Pour in 5-10gal of cold ethanol with no biomass to cool the reactor first. I’d be able to keep it below -35C with a 15-20 residence time. I’d recommend getting a 12" hinged clamp for the lid, if not then have an impact driver on hand for the clamp. Also, glue the gasket to the lid, that thing is a pain in the ass to keep putting on.
Solid point. You could also do it the old school way jars in dry ice.
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Would be intrested in speaking with you about what you have available, specs, pricing