How would a commercial extraction facility be staged? Im curious about companies who claim to extract millions of pounds a minute (exaggeration).
So i used the word “staged” because this has been the most useful concept for me to conquer tremendous amounts of work. Whether im chilling or filtering, if i stage my work into different sections then the amount of energy or work needed for each step is reduced. Im assuming we apply this concept to extraction.
First step im guessing would be to reduce biomass to a powder or resin. Dry sift or ice water hash?
Next dissolve that resin in solvent and carry on with your processing.
Im just having a hard time imagining a processing plant that resembles a petroleum plant because thats a whole lotta solvent.
I’m still looking at 1000lb a day as a target. Should be achievable with a CUP 1.2. Just. wouldn’t be how I’d spec it if asked today, but it should work until they’re ready to scale again.
I’ve proposed larger schemes, but have been budget constrained for so long that I’ve pretty much given up hope on the guys I’ve been working with. looking for a new team to play with at the moment.
@Cannachem looks to be aiming at 1000lb/hr. and hoping to scale beyond that soon.
I don’t believe they’re the only one on here with current plans on that scale. I suspect others are just playing closer to the chest…
ethanol recovery is energy intensive, but can be done on whatever scale you need. Huge stills have been with us for at least a couple of hundred years, and industrial scale falling film units can certainly be had.
without a centrifuge or press, you’re looking at loosing 15-20% of your solvent to your biomass, how you choose to deal with that would seem to be a pivotal design issue.
Rainier suggests adding water, AND sugar and throwing it in your still. They even claim to have a critter that can release the fermentable sugars from your spent biomass (I’m gonna have to chase that one down…).
Our MAGNANIMOUS systems blow through about 500lbs of biomass every 8 hours. ASME certified compliant systems. Can produce crude,shatter,Live resin etc… Works with Propane as well. 300k for the system no pumps. We recommend 3 master vapor pumps. There are ways adding additional columns and pumps to go faster.
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I would imagine they would just have multiple HUGE jacketed vessels and use ethanol extractions under dewaxing temps. It would take a shit ton of cooling power to get those vessels and the solvent that cold. Then the vessels all connect to the “extract pipeline” that feeds through micron filters and eventually into a bunch of stainless steel conical stills. So that they can just push the crude down with pressure into another pipeline that feeds into Wipe Films. Then from there the distillate goes to short paths for the special clients or sell as is. I could imagine a good welder can get all the extraction and solvent rocovery process made in a week or so. I think the most expensive part of all of it would be the cooling/heating and the wiped films
Sustainability would probably be a massive scale Ethanol Extraction still a lot of solvent, ive seen an extremely large co2 facility that processes varying amounts. I know of extractors in production currently that 150L in size and an experimental 500L that they are testing. Would be fascinating to see it in operation from crude to disty on a massive biomass uptake. You would need an army.
imo sustainability would also include using solar to heat your solvent (cool it too if you’re super clever), reuse of cooling water to water plants, and solvent production from spent biomass to make up the bit that you lose each time.
a 5 ton chiller will drop 100gal of ethanol from +20C to -20C in about an hr with the right heat exchanger. or manage a similar temp drop on 1000gal in 12 or so hrs (guessing at losses).
Some folks are using liqN2 or CO2 for cooling, others are buying air or water-cooled chillers. if you’ve got the $$$ and the electrickery required (see fusion reactor above) you can chill as much solvent as you like. but it probably doesn’t make a lot of sense. unless your consumer facing end product is “crude”. in which case you may not be playing at the same scale…
Edit: A walk-in freezer would not be my first choice if looking at thousands of gallons. although they work well at the beer keg scale. and can be had dirt cheap used.
Okay so lets say you have 16 columns, how fast can you dry them out so you can change them? I see numbers that are all over the place from you guys @PurgeLabs . 25 min for every 30 lbs is the quote i see. Can we elaborate on protocol for achieving this? Are we extracting a few columns in intervals and constantly switching them out or all at once? Lets say Im looking to process lavender and hops lol
Got a sec to talk about it on the phone ? Depending on what you are trying to achieve definitely changes run time. I.e. Crude, shatter, live resin, sugar, sauce, etc… Crude is clearly the quickest. Also recovery times are based on how much vapor you can condense so if your running CEMP s your not going to be able to keep up with those numbers. Hence we like the master vapors. The better your pumps the quicker those columns will dry out.
You can extract one column at a time and use a Hot vapor assist or You can continuously run the system. One column dumps, as it finishes you start the next one, so on… Either way you will be right in the pocket of those numbers.
You could dump all three at the same time, but thats not how we feel it is best used. We like continuous feed.
There are alot of different ways people run these systems. Our clients doing the most work definitely go Hot Vapor or Continuous feed. We are very comfortable in ~500lbs every 8 Hours.
Give us a call if you have any questions at all.
