Formula for Molecular sieves?

Hash and Stuff Solvent Recovery
21

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/bk-1985-0269.ch019
Interesting read

2 Likes
22
2 Likes
23

I’ve heard about it just not something we really considered. We know distillation pretty well so we stick with it

1 Like
24

Yes they do i Spoke to them today About an other tread i started
Revursed osmosis extraction of oil from ethanol
And iT seems they are already selling these to essential oil extractors

3 Likes
25

Stick to your trade and You seem good at iT .
But openminded thinking got me this idea

3 Likes
26

Is this for extraction? You don’t need 200 proof ethanol for extraction.

1 Like
27

190 food-grade is adequate and doesn’t need to be chilled as much as 200 proof to be selective for the compounds we seek from cannabis biomass.

1 Like
29

Zeolite 3A: Approximate chemical formula: 2/3K2O•1/3Na2O•Al2O3• 2 SiO2 • 9/2 H2O

Wikipedia is always a nice resource as well. You will find in the wiki a table of zeolites and how much they hold in water. To get to 25% you’ll need some very large pore sizes.

Nice college paper talking about 3A:
https://www.colby.edu/chemistry/PChem/lab/TGA.pdf

“Zeolites can hold up to 20% of their weight in water.”

Edit: Sorry forgot to post about the practice. This is just a rough approximation given the whole liquids thing, but give it a go.

About calculating the amount of Zeolite you’ll need.

  1. First you will need an ethanol hydrometer.
  2. Then you need to use it- find out how much water is present in your wet ethanol.
  3. Perhaps your EtOH is 10% water and everything “weighs” 100g.
  4. If you want to go ahead and make a rough estimate, you can take the “weight” of the water (10g)…and understanding that the zeolites only carry 20% of THEIR weight in water, you go:

10g/0.2= 50g of Zeolites needed.

  1. Take out the hydrometer again and test that new ethanol! Hopefully you dried it up pretty good…

Note: I’ve used a toaster oven to regenerate zeolites before…it actually works…doesn’t smell great though.

2 Likes
30

What’s the benefit of 10A over 3A?

1 Like
31

Angstrom is a length measurement unit. The angstrom or ångstrom (Å) is an internationally recognized unit of length equal to 1 × 10-10 meters (m) or 0.1 nanometer (nm). The unit is widely used in physics, chemistry and biology to express the sizes of atoms, molecules, and the electromagnetic wavelengths.

3a is 3 angstrom so going to 10a you now have a much higher selectivity sieve because of the size of the pores. Silica-gel in chromatography is usually 60a or as close to it as possible.

Here’s a cool explainer vid on this as it relates to water filtration:

Water molecules are approximately 3 angstroms in diameter while salt is between 7 to 9 angstroms. Pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and industrial chemicals are typically larger than 10 angstroms.

by comparrison - the 1 micron filters we use during cbleach scrubs are 10,000 angstrom and the 8mic lipid filters are 80k a

3 Likes
32

May I ask a slightly off topic question here rather than start a new thread? Gray Wolf recently at ICMAG Forums posted up Pharmer Joe’s suggestion I try Drierite instead of molecular sieves to dry some 90-92% ethanol I produced from vodka with my countertop water distiller.

Drierite, unless you can buy direct from Hammond is expensive!! I found this yesterday and bought it on the spot,

“DrieRite Desiccant, Calcium Sulfate 25 lb sealed Can 13025 Size 8 Mesh USA made” $108 with free shipping,

https://www.ebay.com/itm/DrieRite-Desiccant-Calcium-Sulfate-25-lb-sealed-Can-13025-Size-8-Mesh-USA-made/172859090363?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

That’s the non-indicating version, which I assume is what I need, GW never got back to me about it.

A Search here came up with nothing for Drierite, anyone?

“Capacity
For the drying of liquids, DRIERITE instantly absorbs 6.6 weight percent water by chemical action, creating the hemihydrate of calcium sulfate.”

1 Like
33

yes, you want the non-indicating form. the blue/pink indicator used is ~2% cobalt chloride, which I don’t believe you want to add to your meds.

MSDS lists the Calcium Sulphate as “non-toxic”

EDIT: I’m hoping the indicating mol-sieves @Deleted mentions are using something other than cobalt chloride for the color change.

5 Likes
34

The Drierite was shipped without any extra packaging, the USPS worker lugged the can by the handle to my door.

The indicator is probably ok with ethanol, but I have a bunch of other solvents the Drierite might get used with so I’m content with my choice of the non-indicating version.

The vacuum sealed pouch in the pictures contains 3A molecular sieves from HFS.

P1040649
P10406493072×2304 1.49 MB
P1040654
P10406542304×3072 1.13 MB
P1040651
P10406512304×3072 1.39 MB

2 Likes
36

Here’s another trick: ‘tapioca balls,’ that are essentially pure starch, are available commercially for ‘Boba tea’ preparation. If exposed to ethanol in vapor phase (like in the expansion chamber of Buchi and Heidolph evaporators), they efficiently remove water, passing ethanol at 97% or better. They supposedly can be regenerated at 110 C, but you have to be cautious that you don’t overheat.

5 Likes
37

Out of curiosity, does anyone know what angstrom size THC is adsorbed at?

2 Likes
38

you can get your size exclusion media or filters in daltons…

https://www.gelifesciences.com/en/us/shop/chromatography/resins/size-exclusion/sephadex-g-10-p-05610

3 Likes
39

Can you re proof 99.95iso with a non vacuumed still. The stuff is so cheap seems to defeat the purpose with molecular sieve bead etc. Looking for the cheapest best way to re proof due to water content. A lot of information pertaining to different situations , this is mine ha.

1 Like