Its Back and Worse then ever. The Dreded BENZENE!

Just shoot an email over to Sales@illuminatedextractors.com and we will get you a quote over. They need a special housing that we make to go along with it.

I spoke to professor Ryan Lively of Georgia tech and he says he has a membrane that can allow butane and propane through while blocking benzene, toluene, xylene etc.

Quite a road to getting that developed into anything but call me in year if this is still proving a repeat issue, lol.

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That would be cool. Blocking to what degree is an interesting question. This is a ppm-pbb problem so if it’s effective to that degree that is very impressive

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Good question. He probably doesn’t know either. Pay him 50k and i’m sure he’ll find out for you.

Making some great progress on improving BTEX and safety standards at ASTM.

I bet by 2040 you guys will have Medusa almost figure out

Bang up job!!!

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Have you tried the cortera product we supply? Its filtered specifically for fast crash and medusa… You can check it out here.

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What’s it missing that the others have that cause Medusa?

How to Stop Medusa: Cortera Gas, X-GAS and the Chemist from Texas

Updated: Dec 3, 2023

So again

What is the compound causing Medusa that isn’t in the new product?

The 100% certainty is that hydrate inhibitors were being added to the raw product in early stages that caused major issues in crystallization. Our solution targets any oxygen-containing compound, employing a type of chemical reaction to bind to the entire molecule. This may seem like a blanket fix, but it’s a specific and targeted approach, addressing the root cause—the oxygen atom. For diethanolamine, we employ reactions to uptake nitrogen compounds attached to alcohols or hydrocarbons. While we use liquid-liquid extraction and chromatography at the bench-top for analysis, these methods are not used on a large scale during processing.

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So it was various amines?

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  1. Can anyone post analytical results / chromatograms verifying Cortera butane has < a ppb benzene?

Regarding medusa/fast crashing:

  1. Are there any analyses of Cortera’s starting product that shows the compounds that cause Medusa in the gas along with same analyses of the processed butane showing they have been removed?

  2. Has the Cortera gas been completely effective in resolving the medusa and fast crashing issues.

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I started a new thread about a benzene testing kit we developed to allow end-users and wholesalers to pull sample(s) of liquid phase hydrocarbons and have the sample(s) analyzed for purity and benzene analysis specifically for presence of benzene. $200 for the kit and our in-house analysis. We cover all shipping costs, even if you want to have the sample sent to some other lab for analysis.

An investment of a couple hundred dollars allows both resellers and end-users to confirm the accuracy of the analyses provided by their supplier(s). The benzene issue has impacted both resellers and end-users with some end-users reporting losses of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars by having their extractant test positive for benzene.

As an industry, we need to identify the source(s) of the butane that is contaminated with benzene. Message me here or email the address in our original post for more information. Jim

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Cortera COA below, but there are process factors that should be considered also. We are working with ASTM to reduce total impurities and benzene specification for extraction. A new standard is being written now. Would love to get more extractors involved. DM if you want an intro.

Great visual representation of how the distributors level of involvement in the final product is nonexistent and why their claims should be taken as baseless sales pitches.

It looks like they get to decide what type of truck to deliver it to you in.

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