Molecular sieves

Hash and Stuff Solvent Recovery
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88

Graywolf:

Of course concentrate sizzling is a byproduct of water accumulating in the LPG and being injected, if you don’t take it out with subsequent processing. If it is still there after final purge, you have yet another problem with your process.

Oil that has even a slight amount of water entrained will not always be able to be purged to a non-sizzling state very easily or at all. If it just has surface condensation from being in cold storage then taken into a humid environment, that is one thing. Significant water that is entrained in the oil, like we are talking about here, is much different. Even a small volume like 10-15ml of water entrained in a couple hundred grams of oil will cause major headaches. Ask me how I know.

IMO it would cause major issues for beginners and experts alike very quickly if water pickup was as big as I feel you’re making it out to be, necessitating weekly purges.

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Are you saying you are unable to remove water from your concentrate?

89

not to ruin yor thoughts graywolf, but thats why I hate ethanol winterization. the oil gets wet. I pretty much attempt shatter and only shatter, it takes forever to purge and loses all terps.

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90

Graywolf:

The other thing it does if you are using a carbon steel tank of course is rust, so stainless is best for that application, unless it must also meet DOT certification.*

I have been using the same carbon steel tank for multiple years, probably 3+, and I’ve been running without molsieve for close to 2 years. I run full time.

I always bottom flood my columns first and the liquid goes through a slug of coffee filters before it hits the material. I inspect the coffee filters after I remove the column.

I have never seen any rust particles there, ever. How can this be if water pickup is so common and such a sure thing? I have never once vented the tank or had water issues and I run lots of fresh frozen.

I know people do occasionally have issues with rusting tanks but I think they either get water in the system from sources other than the material or the steel tanks are shitty to begin with and were not stored with inert atmosphere. Some shitty tanks also have slag on the inside that gets dislodged over time and I think people often mistake it for a rusting tank.

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Have you ever removed your valve and inspected your tank?

91

im not travelling with it but am still uncomfortable with a tank of tane on a triclamp gasket in my garage. at the same time= I got a tank of butane today and couldnt open the valve= It was fully open when they sold it to me but the way it works it didnt all leak. Edit it was propane from the grocery store, he actually handed me an empty at first?

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92

Tech1145

8h

Graywolf:

It clearly can pickup enough water, or there would be no one experimenting with desiccants, and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

I don’t think people are running molsieves in the vapor line because they’ve had previous water issues.

IMO people run mol sieves in their vapor line simply because that’s the way it was done by those who came before them (you) on ICMag, then all the extractor companies copied you. Also, not for nothing, equipment companies love selling consumables and they push the narrative out as well.

A filter/drier on the vapor line is the typical way vapor-compression HVAC systems are setup but they usually have another desiccant in the liquid line and the vapor line filter/drier is mostly there to protect the compressor from debris and occasional spits of liquid refrigerant.

The decision that was made back in the day to run mol sieve in the vapor line doesn’t make sense to me.

If the water collects in the tank it would be much more effective to run the sieves in the liquid line before the pre-injection chiller. Why not catch the water (if there even is any) before it contaminates the oil? Why wait and try to catch it on the vapor side after it’s mixed with the oil? Huge columns of sieve beads just muck up the works on the vapor side of an extraction system.

People running the status quo are not experimenting and there’s nothing wrong with that. I have completely removed the mol sieve from my system and have had it that way for years. I used to run it once in awhile on the liquid line but I don’t even do that anymore.

That is my experimental data which you seem to be having hard time acknowledging.

I think the instances you experienced years ago may have had other issues. We don’t see wide spread (or any at all really) issues with water contamination today.

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It would be uplifting to think I had much effect on the rest of the world deciding water was an issue and seeking solutions, but alas no.

“I seem to be having a hard time acknowledging your experimental data”, because it flies in the face of my own personal experience and that of folks worldwide, besides being anecdotal. Show me the empirical test data supporting your position and I’ll consider it.

The way I addressed water with WolfWurx equipment, was to chill the injection LPG with dry ice slurry or LN2 (Mk B versus C) to limit water pickup, added an *inlet cyclonic filter drier, and added a weekly water purge to the operating manual.

The *cyclonic inlet filter was molded zeolite and did two things. Its primary purpose was to protect the pump from concentrate laden liquid and secondarily it removed water from the LPG. It is on record as having saved several pumps and it gains weight in service, suggesting it is absorbing something.

It subsequently loses weight when vacuum baked, suggesting it is losing something.

I picked once a week for the tank purge, which is not fixed in concrete. The fish trap exists only because of the fish, so it could be lengthened, depending on the ongoing findings.

Sooooo, cutting to the chase, would I add a desiccant filter solely to remove water, if I were not protecting the pump. No, because venting the tank on a regular basis solves the problem.

If you had a bottom dump tank, would venting the tank of water be necessary? No, because it accumulates slowly, so its presence in the concentrate would be minimal and removed during vacuum purging.

I get it that you don’t agree, but as you are the one flying in the face of common practice, I believe the onus is on you to convince the rest of the world with empirical data, rather than just your opinion.

Given that concentrates are pharmaceuticals, I also suggest that you consider the cleaning requirements for equipment used in food service and for pharmaceuticals and revisit your carbon steel tank. How have you been cleaning yours?

93

Yup, I’m thinking tis better to not extract the waxes in the first place by using subzero extractions or if not, inline dewax.

94

I may try a bulk dewax soon post crc to see what happens. I have some 6 inch tubes but need a cap to use that. or i can use a 18 x4 inch spool that can fit in m freezer. I would put it in the deep freeze a couple days and then on some dry ice before forcing it out through filters with low psi nitrogen. probably crash diamonds in the process if lucky.

95

A good point about safe storage. The easy to clean tanks are not DOT approved for a reason and consideration should be given to what the effect of a leak would be where you currently have them stored.

96

when I was gettin the rust I was doing bottom to top flood and then back, it had one filter from the bottom hemi to collection. Like 3 from the top down including the plant matter as a huge filter.
Thats when i started felt filters and still wasnt perfect because I was injecting rust right into the bottom hemi . I still run steel tanks but with mole sieve and am aware of rust now. You can do a dry run on gas and distill any spare oxygen or nitrogen as well as seeing if theres rust- or buy a stainless tank. Also- run the liquid throgh the mole onthe way in and the gas through onthe way out on he dry run to dry your questionable gas.

97

“was your advice about inverting tanks prior to mole sieves? When there may have been larger volumes of water?”

Yes it was. I also experimented with mol sieves and didn’t like them because of the dust and mess handling them, so designed my own cyclonic filter drier using dual molded zeolite elements and put them on the suction side, vis a vis the discharge side of the pump, so it performed a dual purpose and was easily serviced without purging the complete system.

I got thank yous from owners whose pumps were saved from an employees error and ostensibly if there was no water present in the LPG, the elements wouldn’t gain weight in service.

Because they see the water before the tank, they will slow down tank accumulation until they saturate, but as I’ve noted, water accumulates slowly enough that once a week tank purge was adequate to prevent it from accumulating to a depth deep enough to be picked up by the dip tube and injected.

Systems using a bottom tank drain vis a vis a dip tube, don’t accumulate at all, as it leaves in minute amounts with the concentrate and is removed during purge.

What I found designing both aerospace or cannabis equipment, is that I had no control over how they were used, so I learned to design them to cover foibles and sins of the user as well.

Not everyone is a crack experienced operator and you shouldn’t have to hold your mouth just right for a piece of equipment to perform well.

It is also good that we don’t all have the same opinions or like the same things, because otherwise progress would grind to a halt and us man childs would kill each other off over the same woman.

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98

What is your recharging process? I don’t like the idea of turning up my oven to 300+ over night.

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Whatever temp you chose, weigh in and weigh out of your oven. Keep notes.

Dry sieves should hold up to 20% by weight. If yours drop by 20% then you got to them late. If they pick up weight you can’t remove, it’s likely you’re not successfully regenerating and should go longer or warmer

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100

I’ve left an oven on at 350 for months now… She seems alright. Little dusty though.

On another note, Delta Adsorbents states that you should regenerate at least 400 deg, when I inquired about regeneration. They also reiterated what Cyclopath stated earlier.

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101

What do you use as a free flowing liquid vapor separator if you don’t mind spending a bit of time to explain. Thank you in advance!

102

if you don’t mind searching on the query he gave, you’ll find it’s been written up.

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103

ditto.

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104

Read some references to water washing beads in another thread, but I haven’t been able to find the right keywords?

Do you have a spoon I can borrow @cyclopath

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105

purpose? medusa begone?!?

see: ammonia koan

it was referring to washing the SOLVENT.

water washing the 13x to regen was suggested.
… but I’m not sure that was here.

what are you hoping to achieve with a water wash?
what are you washing?

edit: …without those bits, your query is definitely non-trivial. I don’t believe I’ve seen it, which means I’ve got no hooks with which to find it.

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Potentially medusa! Still evaluating the issue currently

That was precisely the spoon I needed, thank you!

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107

C or F

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