Is anyone using a jacketed reactor to decarb large amounts of oil? And if so how are you getting all of the oil out when done? Because of the temp is it fluid enough to get most of it to drain and pump out? And then what about the residue? Are you doing a CIP with warm ethanol and then rotovap the ethanol out? Or can you leave it in there til the next batch if its in the next 24 hours? Just wondering what other large groups are doing.
2 Likes
You can push it out with nitrogen into a smaller tank like a “honey pot”
1 Like
I’m curious about this too because I was thinking of reactor purposes with my friend not too long ago and the idea of decarbing in a reactor would be an ideal way because of the constant agitation and controlled heat it could potentially come out as a fluid. Then we both agreed the rest would probably be washed out with ethanol and sucked into a filtration system and then a rotovap for ethanol recovery. … The idea behind the filtration would be so that it could be voided of any lipids so that it could be produced as a dabable end result… Another idea I had was bumping the rpm up.all the way open the drain port with ehtnaol and see if you could spin ot into another device , like a rotovap, a centrifuge to recovery sorta thing. Man I’d fuck around with a reactor so bad.
Though that was just an idea I’m not an owner of a reactor just a heavy thinker
1 Like
Personally I’m extracting cold so I’m not getting any lipids at my solvent recovery or decarb stage. And its hemp input material so I wouldn’t want to dab it anyways.
With that said, I’m running a 150L reactor for my final solvent recovery and decarb. Round bottom with a 6" TC fitting, I bought a 6" TC blind cap, drilled and tapped it for 1/2" female pipe and spun it on the lathe, cut a taper into it inside of where the gasket seats so it would all drain towards the center. Added a close pipe nipple and a 1/2" stainless ball valve, and raised the reactor a bit with some square tubing so I could slide a 5 gal bucket underneath the ball valve for draining. After decarb I let it cool to 70C or so before draining so I don’t melt the food grade buckets we use for transport. Doubt I leave more than a few grams worth of oil in there between runs.
2 Likes
Thats where all the best ideas comes from, ime. think and plan, so once you actually have the bitch, you can hit the ground running.
Final winterization of a more concentrated liquor in needed to drop fats out that even -60c extraction temp pulls. Its all a solubility thing,and until you increase saturation heavily, youre still gonna pull a bit of fats, and those fats can definitely drop out in your isolate. Most will stay in the mother liquor but unless youre using warm wash xtal protocol you can still leave stuff in there.
I still plan on giving you a call. Nitrogen would work because we are using liquid nitrogen for cooling and may be able to capture the gas and use it elsewhere in the plant such as you suggested.
Decarb vessel / batch evaporator mock-up.
You can use any type of condenser - I just chose plate style for solvent recovery. The cone piece on the vessel to the right is where you’d mount a stirrer. Some reactors come with bottom-mounted stirrers but I’d be more afraid of the seal being compromised over time and use. And I would try to clean it while the oil is still warm every time, as to not gunk up the stirrer. Not as necessary for top-mount.
I also like the idea of having impellers spaced across the height of the evaporator vessel - to break up bubbles/foaming from decarb.
Very cool. I have my eye on a 100 gal reactor. Should be getting it soon just wanted to make sure it would work.
Every facility should have a day-end cleaning protocol and you can just collect those batches and make a day rerunning it, if youre set up for such. Its best to not let decarbed oil cool in any vessel and cool, it will lock up and take a long time to heat up unless your entire transfer system is heated well. Throw some ethanol in it when its still hot, let it do its thing refluxing and stripping itself, and toss it into a collection dedicated for it.
@greenbuggy check out stainless steel yeast brinks for holding vessels, buckets is savagetech lol
2 Likes
We’re using food grade buckets to package up and transport to customers or to labs that will take it to distillate/isolate, yeast brinks are awfully expensive holding tanks to give away since we usually don’t get those buckets back.
What are you up to these days? Want to grab a beer sometime?
Perhaps I shouldn’t have said “no lipids” but certainly a low enough amount that we’re not having issues with streaking in the distillation or isolation process, @Dabatronicus can attest since he distills the majority of what we’re extracting.
1 Like
Yes, I can confirm they are not picking up significant lipids to affect distillation or isolation. Lower quality material will sometime still push more phospholipids/water solubles but it is much less and easily managed.
That makes sense, that would be a lot of yeast brinks. Yeah it would be great to sit down!
@Dabatronicus
Are you running a hot enough condenser to push them out?
Low and slow, most can be removed in heads in a SPD. In wiped film, it’s different. The water solubles mainly char on the wall(not ideal but it’s rare) and don’t distill at all.
Warm extracted material, it’s impossible to separate without liquid/liquid or redistillation if it’s mild.
1 Like