Hey everyone,
My company currently is running about 400lbs of hemp a week through ethanol extractions for CBD oil. We use a pair of CUP15 units for extractions and are bottle-necking heavily at our evaporation steps. We currently use a pair of 72L rotary evaporators / condensors but they have been more trouble than they are worth.
I’m looking to upgrade / expand my evaporation equipment. Is there any reason to not consider a falling film evaporator over a rotary system.
Thanks guys
From what I’ve seen of the FFE system from BZB and the rising film system pinnacle sells, and expect this of almost every FFE/RFE out there, they don’t reduce the ethanol completely out of your input “tea”, they reduce it to approx 90-95% crude 5-10% ethanol so it can still be pumped out of the evaporator, you will still need a rotovap or some other processing equipment to get the last bit of ethanol out and IMO, should decarb in there as well, otherwise your SPD/WFE operator is going to be real unhappy with you. So I’d say FFE in conjunction with a rotovap for the last 5-10% of ethanol is your best bet.
Also if you are expecting a cheap roto to be anything resembling “good” right out of the box, you’re in for a world of hurt. We’ve torn covers off our 50L Chinese roto chillers and augmented their (shitty) fans with box fans for more cooling power, use an oil as a thermal fluid, added fluid preheaters in the heating reservoir and built a slurp tank to remove crude without having to pull the evaporation flask and all the risk and hassle that entails. There’s plenty of content on here about how to improve cheap rotos like this thread: Optimizing your RotoVap
that has been my line of thinking as well.
It is certainly how I’ve got the @TruSteel FFE I last interacted with set up.
that said, I suspect that it could also be achieved in a purpose built decarb reactor, which is going to be less trouble than running silicone based heat transfer fluid in a big rotovap imo.
This wasn’t a cheap chinese roto. It was bought prior to my starting here and was a system built from scratch by a local company.
I’m not wanting to completely knock them yet but I’ve has a lot of issues and random glass breaking / cracking over the past few months that is costing me a lot of money.
Thanks for all the information. Let me dig into that and see what I come up with
Ah, I’m also no stranger to cleaning up someone else’s mess. If you post pics and specify what parameters you’re running at there’s a few people on here who can help you troubleshoot your process
Will do man. I’ll get some pics and post up.
share some glorious pics!!!
Hi buddy
If u want to expand your evaporation system, you could dm me.
I am manufacturer from China and could provide good quotation of rotovap, wiped film, chiller, reactor, spd, molecular distillation and so on.
Welcome your inquiry by dm
I represent a multitude of different companies and would love to talk you through whats available on the market and its benefits and drawbacks. Im also making several solvent strippers/ decarb reactors that will take off everything but the last bit of heads and main body.
Hot volatilized crude to fill your vessels with seamlessly
We have a multitude of evaporators from 15 to 400 GPH and a decarboxylation unit to pair to remove the last 2-5% of solvent left over. Give us a call at 530-802-0420
