Hey all,
I’m wondering how people like the jacketed reactors for extraction. I’m currently doing cold ethanol soaks in buckets using dry ice, zippered 2 gallon bubble bags than fit into a panda spin dryer for recovering solvent. This works great but I’m getting sick of traveling to buy dry ice and would really like to use a chiller instead.
So it has me thinking of looking into a reactor or mixing tank, but it seems like it would be a pain in the ass to get the plant material out after the solvent is removed. Do most people mill the plant material where they can suck it out of a bottom port and into a centrifuge? I’m trying to get a picture of how that works. Also, will a -40c chiller pumping liquid through the jacket be enough to chill the ethanol in a reasonable time, or is a heat exchanger necessary also?
I found this one local to me for pretty cheap. 100L Jacketed mixer tank, but the port on the top is only 6in so I would not be able to use bags. Has a port on the bottom that might work for draining.
No bags are needed. Pumps have a solids rating that is usually in inches which will help you determine the required mill size.
As far as pumps 4 options come to mind positive pressure, a large 1-2” AODD, slurry pump, or centrifugal pump used in beverage transfer (ideally high pulp so fruit juice or beer) all of course need to be appropriately rated. Make sure the AODD pump is groundable and ground the fucker for sure to avoid💥 chill your solvent by inline exchangers or a jacket holding vessel with its own process chiller. Fill at the end of each day and it will be ready in the morning. Just size it to the volume required daily. You can use heat exchangers to help reach final temp as it travels to the extraction chamber if needed. Once your vessel is at temp add your source material and wait until it reaches your extraction temp before adding solvent. Once everything is at temp add solvent and agitate. When done open bottom valve then turn on pump and centrifuge. You can try different micron filter bags in your centrifuge. Ideally Id aim for 20-25 micron bag to also utilize solvent separation as my stage 1 of filtering. You’ll have to balance the micron size with speed and total ethanol recovered vs lost (it may be more economical to go 75 or 100 microns from a time/recovery vs filtration stance).
To upgrade this system get a jacketed centrifuge and jacketed transfer lines to maintain temps while you remove the plant matter from your solvent. As the temp rises and you have plant matter exposed to ethanol you will start pulling a ton of green and the tighter micron bag you use the longer the separation will take. Also the centrifuge will add heat. I would also pay to get both systems wrapped with high R value insulation to avoid Lake Tahoe on the floor below. A scrapper or auto discharge centrifuge and very large jacketed mixing tank can turn this setup into a semi continuous extractor. Feed your filtrate from the centrifuge into staged 12” pressure filters and an inline heat exchanger prior to evap and you are rocking!!!
Thank you so much for explaining the process. I’ve been checking out some of the larger extraction systems and trying to understand how the material would flow.
Is the ethanol typically recovered after one soak, or is it returned to the reactor for a second soak on fresh material?
You are welcome! You can reuse the same volume of solvent at least 2-3 maybe more times just make sure you fully filter out any plant matter (if you don’t that plant matter will continue to extract and add a bunch of undesirables to the mix) by passing through at least a bed of celite over a 20 micron filter. You will also need to add fresh solvent to ensure your solvent to mass ratio stays constant. Then pass through inline heat exchangers to get it back to exptraction temp. You will need to compensate for solvent saturation by increasing your soak time for each additional use.
So I ended up buying this tank off craigslist for $600. It’s in really nice shape, the inside and mixer look like new. The outside has some scratches, but looks solid. I figured even if I don’t use it for a extraction vessel, I could use it as a solvent tank or fermenter.
I have a couple of questions if some of you guys might have experience with.
The jacket has three ports. Two them have 1" npt with Swagelok quick connects. Are these suitable if I was to use a recirculating chiller, or would I be better off switching to different adapters for the chiller hose.
The third jacket port is a pressure relief valve I assume or maybe a temp probe? The seller wasn’t sure what it was. Has anyone seen one like this or know what it is? The center hole has female threads, and is an inch or so deep.
Also on top of the tank is a port with what looks like another pressure release maybe? Not sure if it is missing part of it that would hook up to the tri clamp flange, maybe a line to redirect the potential blow off?
So I found out the port on the lid is actually a rupture disk. It is meant to break open, as a safety measure if pressure gets to high.
The bottom drain valve is pretty cool, but don’t know how it would re-seal with plant material passing through. I’ts called a radial diaphragm valve and seems like a solid design. ASEPCO Radial diaphragm™ tank-bottom valves - YouTube
The side jacket connection might be some type of censor or heating element. There is not much information online about this tank. The manufacturer, Northland Stainless, is no longer in business so no one to talk to.
Any suggestions on how to roughly calculate what size chiller to get if I was to use the jacket? I was thinking I will need to determine the volume of liquid in the jacket in order to figure reservoir size. I would be filling the tank 1/2 to 3/4 full, so I would be trying to chill 15-20 gallons of ethanol from normal freezer temps to -40c.
