I’ve run into a problem after setting up a new lab (same process, different location). During recovery the oil in my collection vessel is crashing and forming a large puck at the bottom of the vessel. The only thing I’ve changed from my previous set up to this one is having an injection coil on dry ice before sending the solvent into the columns. I’m thinking perhaps I’m running the solvent too cold and when it goes into the collection chamber the warmth from recovery meeting the cold from new solvent being fed in I think is causing the solution to crash out. Any tips, tricks or advice here would be very much appreciated! Thanks!
Cold crash is definitely a thing. Maybe more solvent, or warmer solvent to help keep thca from crashing out. Maybe more heat on the collection vessel. Maybe really spicy gas combined with other issues.
Whenever I don’t fill the column jackets with ice the oil always comes out milky. I’ll try removing the input coil and continue filling the columns with ice and dump them through immediately so the solution isn’t sitting in the columns cooling down too much.
Thanks very much, will try today and see where we get folks!
So basically just a higher flow of water through the collection vessel to match the recovery rates? I know when butane evaporates it causes a cooling effect, so if cold solvent is being fed into the collection vessel and the solution in there is recovering at a high rate, then without the adequate heat and flow the solution will drop in temps internally and crash…? Am I onto something?
Any heaters you guys would recommend? Mine broke so I hooked in a redneck heater wither 4 sous vide heaters and 2 hot water transfer pumps. Sometimes it works… sometimes it doesn’t
Another factor to look at in a crash like this is the speed of your recovery. If you are using a pump for recovery, you may want to throttle those valves a bit to slow that down. If you’re running multiple socks before your final recovery and pour you may be removing solvent too rapidly (over recovering) throughout your runs causing crashing early on which is seeding your solution for the next sock. If you notice this in the collection column during the runs you can close off your recovery and allow for the solvent to break down the crashed-out portions. You can also put a small amount of room temp solvent on top which should remelt that thca pretty quickly.
When this happens to me I will valve off the recovery pot, run the heat cycle to 38⁰f under the 35psi or so that the butane vapor will create under heat. This will redissolve the crashed isolate back into the mix.
Of course if you have a bottom pour valve it may still be clogged with isolate, which there is 2 methods to clear. One is messy and involves a long metal rod and physically clearing the block. The other method is I will try using N2 at about 150 psi in quick bursts (opening and closing the valve fast) to try to knock the plug out and up into the warmed butane soup.
As everyone else here has said though, this is a thermal issue, you need to probably pre heat your collection vessel to temps before starting your run, or add more heat during recovery.
Let us know if you find a solution. I have recently run into what I can only assume is spicy gas.
When going for diamonds and pouring into a beaker the THCa will crash out while the gas if evaporating at room temp. I took a terp fraction from that and put it in a jar and have grown regular diamonds with that.
Even running shatter the collection is seeing crystallization on the un jacketed sections (gaskets and pour spout). Jacket is set to 80F and wasn’t a problem ever until had quick crash diamonds.
yup! evolved extraction has this “regenerator” piece where the cold mycella runs right past the hot butane vapors being recovered.
this “pre-heats” the cold mycella to prep it for recovery (and help prevent crashing) and “pre-cools” the butane vapors that are about to be condensed.
