We’re having the same issue but can’t heat our material column. It is jacketed but cooled to -75c, should it not be so chilled and maybe cooled with ice water then switched to heat to collect whatever is left? What about any extract left in the solution that’s collected from the material column?
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If you cant heat your material columns you’re going to struggle with this. Maybe a continual hot gas push could limp you along. Its a open top jacket I take it?
I feel like heating material columns is counter to the overall efficiency of the method. If you’re in an enclosure, is it even worth the loss of efficiency to remove that last bit of solvent?
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Yes sir, those went super quick, didn’t even have to touch them! 
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We could theoretically heat the material column, it is jacketed but cooled with our chiller to -75c as to de wax the material as it sits instead of a separate Dewax column. Would allowing the material to sit in the column for a few hours at those temps help reduce the amount of solvent left in the column? We understand no matter what there is a loss of solvent in the material and in general but the amount we’ve been losing is much more then should be …
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Over the summer i switched to filling my dewax column with material and bypassing the step of filling the material column and dumping to the dewax column. It worked pretty well. I didnt notice a loss in yeild.
But now that its cold (i blast in an unheated barn) the solvent is binding up because the jacketed column stays cold forever.
The last run i did this week i waited until the next day and collected what was left and waited another day again and collected it again (3 days total) i still was unable to recover 7# out of my 25# of tane which is way too much. Normally I lose 4-5# of solvent per run of 5-7# of material.
So im going back to the unjacketed material column and im going to get a silicon heating blanket to wrap it with. Hopefully ill be able to get my solvent loss down to near 10%. Currently with me losing 5# every run a 100# tank doesnt last like it could. I spend too much time distilling tane and not enough time blasting it.
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If by “those temps” you mean with a heated column then yes, if you mean letting your column sit at -75 or even -10, for extended periods of time then no. How much solvent would you recover from your collection pot if you didnt heat it?
I dont see why there has to be a loss of efficiency? You just have to switch from chilling the column to heating it.
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By those temps I mean -75c is what we run through the jacket of the material column, switching that to any type of heat would be an enormous task… if we just cool the material column with ice water or dry ice the material would be full of lipids without a separate dewax chamber… I’ll do a run tonight with the material in the column for a few hours before the run, we’ll weigh the solvent tank when empty and when recovered to get an accurate of what’s left in our material column. Our concern is if we heat our material column as we would the collection chamber and our material isn’t dewaxed we’ll be left with a bunch of fats and lipids in our material column as well…
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Right, but if you’re heating it, then you must recool it after all the gas has been recovered, and that takes time following the run prior to reinjecting for the next run, no?
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Its all about balance and individual ideals and circumstances. Many like to heat and recover as much as possible, others dont, Its all good to me.
The main thing is this topic of discussion is “how to get cold butane completely out of material column” If the topic was debating about it at all then it depends, but if one is interested in the topic then the answer is heat.
The fats and waxes will be left in your material column, exactly where they started. Some times there is enough residual solvent to run down to the bottom valve / manifold area and can be laden with waxy oil, this can be mitigated or avoided. One way would be to have two collections, one for the cold run and the other after for a warm b grade run.
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Also if you are using cones keep them empty so any gas that pools isnt soaking tour material. If you hook up a manifold you could hot gas push and as soon as you see the liquid stop rurn the valve and start collecting the warm gas outta the top. Should heat your column up too much to not be able to re chill before next run
Seems the easy way around this would be my hillbilly box method. I dont use my dewax column anymore. I fill material column, vacummn it down, then disconnect from rack and cover in dry ice. Hour later take out and run. About 30 min in itll slowly warm up. Its 38 degrees in mi average lately. Just keep cloing valve until ya build 5 to 10 lb pressure and blast until no more liquid. Getting 10 out of 11 lb back this way. And running cold. Best of both worlds
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Here are some thoughts to consider:
Also check out the subzero pneumatic circulation system at:
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…He’s spoken
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It’d be interesting to see someone build a manifold/ separate reservoir specifically for heating the column in the jacket. Once you’re done chilling the column someone can close off the chiller and have an already-heated-solution ready to flow through the jacket and start warming it up to recover
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My question is, if only use vacuum and no heat how good of a recovery would you get from the biomass?
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not nearly as much as you’d like.
heat is necessary for any valuable recovery.
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Terrible recovery with just vacuim it will have an evaporative cooling effect. I had really good success freezing a non jacketed column in a dry ice bunker, it thaws out after you flush solvent through it rather than staying cold with a sleeved column. It seems like live resin material may hold onto butane less due to the water content.
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That’s what I was thinking… if I wanted to run glycol through my jackets overnight, what system or protocol is there to evacuate the glycol and run hot water. This had been the struggle for me. Figuring out how to run both glycol and hot water
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