I used Iso as a carrier solvent to dewax, degum, decolor and when I was done I added in some terps. I do not have a roto vap yet. Now I have about 500ml of iso I need to evaporate. I’ve done a cheesecloth over a pyrex with a fan blowing across it method before but it seemed to take forever and brought a lot of water along for the ride (very humid in my environment). Being that I put it in a ghetto separatory funnel (ziplock) with water and salt I believe I should have close to 99% alcohol as i’ve separated off all the water and emulsion layer a few times. Right now I have it in a pyrex dish in the vac oven at 80F -30gh. i got some reaction for about 10 min and then nothing. I figured the vac oven would reintroduce less or no water from the air since it was under vac in comparison to running a fan over it. it’s about 1" deep in a 8 x 8 pyrex dish. I could grab a few more dishes and separate it into 3 or 4 dishes in the vac oven to increase surface area but beyond doing that idk what else would help.
Is there a temp/vac combo that would maximize the evaporation of the iso? a proper separatory funnel and roto vap are on the wish list and will be had in a short time but in the meantime, I need a solution to remove whatever carrier solvent I use as fast as possible and recollecting the solvent isn’t a concern (which is why I used $2.50 a qt iso instead of $200 a gal ethanol) I also live in a state with a 150 proof cap so no over the counter grain alcohol for me.
You need to fully purge your product before re-introducing terps. You will drive off alot of them during the evaporation. A vaccum source will help you remove the solvent faster and at a lower temp.
The surface must be allowed to ripple or the energy needed to break through the barrier from liquid to gas is not added from the fan and is then very slow. The energy must make the surface ripple if using adiabatic evaporation. The solvent seen here is not iso but I routinely evap iso quickly by forcing air across the surface.
What function does a cheese cloth serve in this instance? In the video that solvent was gone in 30 minutes.
cheese cloth purpose it to prevent any airborne contaminants from making it’s way into the dish. a fan sucking air in and cross the pyrex could pickup dust, hair, small pieces of plant matter etc. that’s how i’ve always seen people do it so that’s how i’ve always done it.
I didn’t want to wait until it was too little liquid left and it was difficult to mix the terps in so i figured if i added a little more than needed now it should end up with a decent amount still. that’s my pseudo science logic in how i approached it lol
so your setup is a heated magnetic stirrer along with a fan above that’s a solid idea. i’ve got one of those at my shop i’ll have to bring it home thanks for the idea!
well i took it out the vac oven and put it in front of a 8" 745 cfm fan’s intake so it’s pulling air across it hopefully that gets it purged to the point i can throw it back in the vac oven to finish in the next two hours before i leave for the night. wish me luck !
If you stretch the cut off foot end of a pair of pantyhose over one side of a small computer fan that blows over your evaporating dish you’ll eliminate the need for the cheesecloth. The liquid in the evaporating dish should ripple in waves if you have the airflow from the fan adjusted correctly.
This is what it looks like. Graywolf has a blog post titled ‘polishing extracts’ that covers this procedure. The water picks up polar compounds and the emulsion layer gets rid of more inactive compounds.
No. I planned to use hexane going forward now that my local grow store is stocking extractors and solvents. Iso is just cheap and available and it seemed to be helping without a second solvent.
The magic trick is two fold. The saline exposes any proteins hydrophobic surfaces, making them insoluble in water, so that they precipitate out, and the saturated water has no room for anything but the alcohol, which aids that process.
it’s the salt that causes the water and iso to separate.
