Its not a buzz word its a lie
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Youāre welcome to reach out if you start going further down that road. Iām happy to provide general feedback, but at the same time Iām a practicing chemical engineer/consultant so if you require technical insight into chemistry/design relevant to this project thatās the kind of thing I do bill for. But, equipment design and process chemistry are well within my competency.
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Thank you and Iām very appreciative of your input.
The prices are outrageous, but itās also because everything needs to be explosion proof when using ethanol, methanol, butane, etc. That is also not considering the cost of material handling and facility accommodations. As of three years ago, the amount of improperly, manually handled explosive solvents would have kept OSHA busy for years, yet the feds didnāt drop the hammer. Seems not much has changed since then for the better at scale, either.
There is certainly enough room in the market for multiple players and multiple methods and multiple āsolventsā.
Hey! Another ChemE! Pleased to meet you! 
I truly appreciate it, weāre in the initial knowledge gathering stage right now, but as we progress there could definitely be a need.
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I disagree, for most outfits the allure to co2 extraction is the benefit of the gas being inert (most ppl read solventless). Starting from crude is effectively bypassing that benefit and obtaining a co2 rig for post processing may be enough capex to fail a budget. From experimenting with crude in a smaller co2 system, it did little to clean up the crude & we ended up with red oil and after running the numbers we were better off passing it thru carbon after all the $'s were counted.
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In terms of extraction and cost per kilo, it canāt.
In terms of composition, safety, facility buildout, operations costs, material handling costs, etc., itās a completely separate ballgame. Canāt really compare apples to oranges.
Can compare $ in to product out tho! lol
Then ā¦
Run those numbers against a membrane and where are we ? wasting money ?
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Personally, im mostly interested in this technology as a substitute for ātraditionalā C18 column chromatography. There may be some confusion here, I believe the OP is asking about chromatography needs, not extraction using CO2. Many operations are steering towards isolation of minor cannabinoids, as well as cleanup for synthesis. Chromatography has boomed in waves in this industry, first to remove THC from CBD, than isolation of minors/synthesis cleanup.
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If you built a machine that was a substitute for a teledyne or buchi for example, and uses CO2 and is similar in price yet significantly higher throughput and lower run costs, im sure there is still a market for it. Sure, probably a lot less than there was a year or two ago, but still a small demand for sure.
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Iām sure Iām not following which stage of process and post-processing youāre referring to.
Itās illogical to think that dumping waxes and lipids on a column would do anything for separation. Chromatography is not the way to go if youāre trying to clean up crude oil, especially cruddy oil. If youāre referring to a Waterās system, thatās also a very different control mechanism, nor is scale up ever linear.
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I believe you think Iām speaking on extraction in this initial post, although I responded to you in terms of extraction, Iām specifically referring to chromatography.
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She a thicccc column, are you running crude through that thing?!
Clearly not under a lot of pressure, which is a significant and intrinsic property of sCO2 in general.
Good luck, though!
Yes and as someone who operated a SC-CO2 extractor for many years, it does not come close to hydrocarbon in terms of through put And requires post processing. It has its niches, and can pull some cool stuff like Crystallized THCa, subcritical crude oil, but most importantly the terpenes.
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Iām actually surprised, I built large-scale sCO2 extraction systems and Iām building a supercritical water system right now for another project. Large-scale, itās a beast.
Chromatographyā¦
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We dont load it with crude persay, we do very well with our method and it removes alot of undesirables that are otherwise more costly or time consuming to remove with other tech. I am talking scale here tho, as many of the other ways to peel this grape are not as scalable
From my experiences its really a polarity game when speaking to what cannabinoids are being targeted for what medias in chromatography as it specifically relates to refinement and purification
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Well i hope you have a rather large rotovap for that beast of yours