I did a consultation with @MagisterChemist to do what you are talking about. He is probably one of the most knowledgeable people out there on the use of membranes in this industry. Highly recommend his services.
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I think your process could benefit a lot from a THCa detector. Youāll be able to modify your recipe in the moment. Iāve got a white paper coming that is going to make the case for extracting with saturation points visible.
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@ddec6 Appreciate the recommendation, do you happen to have any data to exemplify your difference in extraction efficiency pre and post membrane usage? Or how your recovery rate has changed?
@alexsiegel It 100% would. I am a huge fan of your work and I definitely see the value in the THCa detector. I highly respect what you are doing for the community, and I hope to make a strong case to acquire one at some point.
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After running and designing smaller setups i have to say this sounds interesting. im in industrial ethanol so im not looking to steal ideas. i run some cryo 10lb tubes on occasion for head stash but not interested in any other projects aside from CO2. i would love a pic
Keep in mind, the hydrocarbon system is HUGE! It does, at the smallest level, 10 lb/min and scales up to many 100s of lb/min cheaply. Iād make a smaller one, but there just isnāt any ā thatās as small of membranes as they make.
So, for the āaverageā butane system, eliminating CRC doesnāt look like a huge economics, but the scaling factor is very significant.
Also, CRC absorbs terpenes and changes the flavor. With membranes, nothing gets absorbed, just passed into the permeate maintaining the original ratios.
Now, what you write about temperature is all very true. You can run warm and yet get a result similar to if you had ran cold. I had always thought of this more from the other direction, that if you donāt need to get cold you can prep runs faster, but itās also true from the other angle, that if you never cooled down, you also donāt need to warm back up to do recovery. So really youāre improving the speed from both ends. I suppose I thought about the cooling side more because big heaters are a lot cheaper than big chillers.
As far as efficiency, at one point in the ancient past I used BHO as a distillate feedstock (this was when distillate still went for $10k a kg), and I did exactly what you said, squeeze every drop out with warm extraction and then use various remediations to get it up to snuff for distilling. This was before I ever touched a membrane, but I frequently made 99% TAC distillate with this method (in fact, my very first post on Future4200 was on this topic).
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Iāll post some as soon as I complete the new setup.
I do all my extraction at 40Ā°F and my recovery rate is 85%. That is with pre and post testing the biomass. My recovery rate is currently 33 lbs min with pure n-butane. The membrane setup uses a separate solvent so it doesnāt affect the extraction efficiency in my setup.
By using a THCa tracker you can eliminate the need to potency test before and after extraction. Youāll be able to tune your run in real time and respond to more THCa without the issues with homogeneity and cost to do LC potency testing
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Super cool build. This feels way closer to a continuous process plant than a normal/typical hydrocarbon extractor.
Can you break down the flow from hopper to crude tank in simple terms? Iām really curious how the soak section, auger, rinse, solvent removal from the biomass, drying gas loop, recovery side, and condensers all tie together. Any more pics you feel comfortable dropping would be wonderful.
Also curious what your background is, because this doesnāt look like something built by someone thinking only in standard extractor terms.
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Thank you. Iām an inventor and armchair engineer. When I was asked if I could build a machine that is continous and automated I wasnāt even familiar with how the hydrocarbon process was currently being done. I designed the process to be as hands free as possible. Most of the current āautomatedā processes are electronically controlled valves given the current equipment was never designed to be automated. What I did was the old GM clean sheet design. I think Illuminated extractors is probably the most advanced system for sale out there and the machine I build is nothing like thereās. Iāll dm you some more pics and details shortly.
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I appreciate the kind wordsā¦
We should at least talk a little bit because what you created is pretty cool and might have some solutions already built in that we might be looking for in the futureā¦
My behemoth r800 can process 300 lb of dry bio per hour but I want to push those numbers well above that for some non-canabis processingā¦
I want to build our Leviathan next which is designed to do 100,000 to a million pounds a day.
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I would definitely be interested. I have a design figure out that would be modular so it can be shop built and shipped. It would have a built in containment design just like the current one. It would be able to run 1000 lbs an hour of dry bio with a single operator. The operator is more or less there just to monitor for system errors. No socks or columns to load or unload. We have made improvements to the current machine, but are limited to a max design of 400 lbs an hour of dry bio. Iām currently working on my dewaxing membrane and isolation setup. It should be able to process 25 kg an hour. Also fully automated.
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Very cool. The clean-sheet angle makes a lot of sense now.
What were the main bottlenecks you were designing around from the start: operator labor, solvent recovery, biomass transport, drying, containment, or something else?
Also, what is actually limiting the current machine to roughly 400 lb/hr dry bio?
The limiting factor for the current machine is the physical size. I was trying to design a system that all you had to do is load a hopper with biomass and occasionally change filters. The loading and unloading of socks and columns doesnāt lend itself to automation and is the primary bottle neck I wanted to avoid. I also wanted the system to be plc controlled. There are no valves or switches the operator controls. Lastly minimize the amount of labor required.
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Ignore this response.
This is some fantastic work. I am super curious about your continuous feed system and think itās some real innovation in our space. Iād love to see more pictures too! Especially of the auger- how do the seals hold up?
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