I call it the De-Carb 5000
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How does this work?
Haven’t used it yet but it is exactly what @hambread described above. A heat exchanger (column on left) and a vapor liquid seperator (top cone) and a gear pump from @Lilibel
Recirculate hot crude in a loop
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Nice. I’m thinking about a condenser plate heat exchanger winterization and inline filtration then something like what you have on the back of evaporator
Weird.
that’s a lot of product hangup.
True I’m just surprised theres not a ready made option available for sale.
You can recirculate in any falling film after all solvent is recovered
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I wonder how this thing will handle the foaming issue. Will the gear pump even work if it is all bubbles?
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Something like Figures C and D. Yes, if your liquid-vapor separator isn’t large enough for the rate of decarboxylation, you may bump liquid over to the condenser. If you’re putting one together for trials, just slap an extra separator or two, in series, to avoid diluting the oil back into all that ethanol, if/when you bump over.
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So a big batch reactor won’t really work for this, because decarbing is all about contact time at a given temperature. Two options to consider:
Plug flow reactor (i.e. coil immersed in heating fluid)… leaves a lot of product
Small parallel jacketed batch reactors (sized for 15-20mins worth of flow volume…1-2L) with upstream and downstream buffer tanks. Could use an accumulator(s) for closed loop nitrogen assist. Valving is complicated and automation would be expensive, but it’s possible. Higher flows? Just add more parallel reactors. FIFO residence time would be decarb time + (flow/reactor volume) in mins.
Is it ever easier to decarb biomass before extracting? Put the material through a hammermill then onto belts that go through a conveyor oven. Power the oven with your spent biomass. It would probably keep your solvent cleaner at the very least.
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Have you found any plate type heat exchangers for this? I think traditional ones would clog too easily from the waxes but they make corrugated ones for small particles. I was looking for something similar but couldn’t find anything with wide enough paths.
all of these plate exchangers have crevices and non drainable areas. you’re looking for the gasketed disassemble-able style if you go this route.
A batch reactor will work, if you use it like circulating reboiler, with enough had space, and slap a liquid-vapor separator on it. Look at Figure D in the image I posted. Get high flow rates and surface area through the heat exchanger.
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Have you seen any updates on an inline decarbing solution?
Regarding batch decarbing, I have a question: with a CO2 extractor vessels being a pressurized vessel and CO2 manufactures pushing terpene profiles, why are they not looking to jacket or introduce a heating coil into an extractor vessel. The idea being to decarb under pressure with CO2 gas and grabbing terps under pressure pushing to the separator vessels in a subcritical run? Would it make for a superior light terpene profile?
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