We offer 3 product categories for filtration of Waxes, Solids and Biomass.
Filter Trolleys are specially suited for wax removal post winterization and come in 5, 30 and 40 gallon capacities.
Batches of 50+ gallons are better suited for a filter press. These machines work well with waxes and are very efficient in removal of clays. Filter presses, ours anyways, do not leak and are easy to clean.
“Drying” Presses, which squeeze biomass to remove solvent are special presses that can process 50+ pounds of plant material per batch (about 1 hr). Pump directly from the agitated extraction vessel (ethanol, etc…) and dump dry solids without manually manipulating plant material. It dries biomass and filters the solvent in one pass.
I’ve found that decent amount of Cannabinoids are in the remaining solvent, and pressing tends to extract a bunch of other unwanted compounds from the flower that then need to be dealt with to recover those cannabinoids.
We have looked at centrifugal dryers. We commented on the Delta unit which is simply beautiful, but with limitations. As per industrial centrifugal dryers (like for laundry and textiles):
They are huge with large footprint.
The larger machines spin slower, so the bigger the less solvent you will recover.
They are expensive, especially the ones made domestically.
They are manual machines so you would have to take your bags (if you use bags to wash) and dump your biomass into the dryer manually as i’m pretty sure bags would unbalance the machine if you did a spin with bags.
Lots of manual processing here which in a few years will seem silly having so much manual labor in the process.
A press works better for several reason:
It’s fully automated so there is no touching the plant; one unskilled operator (with training) can handle the whole operation.
Though there is squeezing of the biomass by no means is it like using a hydraulic press or rollers to squeeze the remaining solvent out of the bags. It is far gentler and you can pick the pressure used.
You can easily wash the biomass with cold ethanol and remove residual compounds that way, so if there is a loss its some solvent not active compounds. Since you wash the biomass that is packed in the press at the end of your cycle, not in your reaction vessel there is less solvent needed to wash.
When you do squeeze the biomass you are squeezing a pretty cold biomass; when you squeeze in a roller, that biomass is close to room temperature most likely so more green stuff comes out at that point than on a cool press environment. Also, in a press you squeeze all biomass at the same time; when you press bags the first may yield a yellowish filtrate but the last probably will be very green.
The solvent that does come out the press is simultaneously filtered so there is no debris of any kind to clog up or FFE, etc…
You can blow air or another gas through your biomass to further dry it, which also cleans your pipes for an absolute recovery.
These press systems can get massive. Correct me if i’m wrong but a cubic foot of trim is about 10 pounds, when compressed it may be more. I got a small system that is for 50+ pounds and we can easily do systems of multi ton units. Obviously the bigger the system the cheaper cost per pound. Solvent and labor savings make the ROI on these things huge.
I just checked out your website. Are you using Welch pumps on your system? I would like to try to get you better pricing on your pumps. If you are interested, shoot me an email at cat@cascadesciences.com.
I’ve been looking into using a centrifuge to dump directly into out of a cryo-etoh biomass reactor for a quick solid-liquid separation, and came across filter presses while researching. Do you have numbers on solvent recovered? Curious too about how fast filters can be cleaned/ changed out.
I m trying to develop a better filtration system for etoh crude by using co2 expanded ethanol. the pressure would mean faster filtrations and the co2 would mean less rotovap time
The problem with centrifuges is the manual labor involved and an open system where your solvent will evaporate and am sure the fire department will have an opinion about all of that. A filter press on the other hand can be fully automatic and closed system, and a filter press will always remove more solvent than a centrifugal machine. A press can both squeeze and blow dry the biomass. Most of the solvent loos is that which is absorbed by the plant.
Lab Society offers lenticular filter setups for industrial filtration. The smallest setup requires about 50gal minimum of solution to run, but filter between 50 and 500 gallons on hour depending on material and size of the housing.
Give us a call in sales for more info! (720) 684-6857 x100
What type of %recovery does your filter press offer? Does this depend on the size of press? Also, what kind of material loads are needed for your smallest press?
