New to Ethanol extraction process, Please help

Hello everyone! I was recently hired on with a start up company for ethanol extraction to produce the famous golden honey oil that everyone wants. I have no experience in this industry and my employers/investors do not either! We purchased an extraction machine (250,000) and have been working with hemp. I am doing all of the research and development and producing all on my own for the time being and need some direction. From my understanding after extraction we have to evaporate the ethanol before putting the solution into a distillation machine. We have also purchased a short path wiped film. Do I need a jacketed reactor or rotary evaporator to remove the ethanol to make the oil more viscous before putting into short path wiped film? My oil right now is dark green and has the consistency of water. I have done research on winterizing and also BĂĽchner funnel techniques to remove the chlorophyll as well. It would be helpful to know exactly what the workflow process is and if we are missing anything. Thanks for the help

1 Like

You need a consultant. That green is not good enough to go on and should be remediated with activated charcoal at least.

5 Likes

:arrow_up:
this. Where are you guys located?

1 Like

Take it from someone a year ago, was in your position ( ten levels higher ). $750000 in and the, then production Manager, ME ! . Became the only employee, with family and friends investors counting on you.
This is a great forum but it IS also a platform for selling Products and Technology. READ MORE, ASK VIEWER QUESTIONS, or the assholes will waste your money and time. Listen to @SNAPDRAGON, great advice. Based on your question and comments, sorry but you have no clue. Green liquor, in an SPD ? Through a buchner etc. ??? RED FLAGS. Please get a consultant. Cold extract -40 c min. Saves you 40 % of cleaning and filtering, NO GREEN. Evaporation in alcohol extraction is always an issue, FFE Equipments not Rotovapes for evaporation. THC remediation will be you next big killer. Then Vendors for all of it, ??? I use
Equipment : LABSOCIATY, MIKE. @Future works with him.
Consumable media: @Shadownaught, carbon chemistry
Tech Information: Future4200, @GreenMachine_Consult, @Roman, @Killa12345 and so many others here. READ, READ, READ. get a consulted. Figure out what your producing and for who !!! GOOD LUCK !!

5 Likes

Chill you alcohol before putting it in your extraction equipment -40 c, even -20 you would see a difference.

3 Likes

I really appreciate you spending the time to get back with me on this. It’s a new industry for me and I understand that I don’t have the experience or knowledge about chemistry. We used liquid nitrogen at only -10 before extraction and then a 2 stage evaporation process with the machine using a vacuum. Of course it is a Chinese machine and the information they gave us was not accurate and now we are left with this liquid. I know we can’t put it in a short path distiller in this condition to get a distilled product. This is why I looked into removing chlorophyll with activated charcoal through a Büchner funnel and also winterization. So I have been cleaning our liquid with -35 chilled ethanol to remove waxed and fats and color. Then I was told we need to buy a jacketed reactor to remove ethanol under heat and vacuum again. At this point I am so frustrated that I will probably seek a consultant and take your advice.

1 Like

You cant blame the equipment. I rock china equipment with zero issues.

AC is for color remediation
AO is for lipid and wax removal (at winterizing temps)

@Zman where are you located?

@Zman where are you located?

@Siosis is a good consultant for the equipment like you need. He can walk you through the process over the phone (if he still consults).

I can help you if you would like. DM me @Zman .

Are you running the Capna Ethos series ethanol extractor?

your work flow is something like this:

biomass goes into the extractor, the output is your ethanol cannabinoid solution.
if you are doing a warm ethanol extraction, you will likely have plant waxes in your ethanol solution. you can remove those by winterization.

if you are doing cold ethanol extracts, (which the capna is designed to do from my understanding), you can bypass the winterization step.

with warm ethanol extracts youll have some green pigment (chlorophyll) which you can remove with activated carbon. DM me about this, I can show you pictures and share my method for a very fair price.

you then need to recover the ethanol. most will use a rotovap but some will use a falling film evaporator. if you use FFE, you may still have 5-10% ethanol left in your oil. you can remove the residual ethanol with a rotovap.
once you concentrate your oil (remove the ethanol) you will have viscous product which should have minimal ethanol.

then prepare your oil for distillation. do this by removing the terpenes and other low boiling compounds (like residual ethanol). you can use a vacuum oven which has a cold trap. You also may want to go ahead and decarb the oil. I can help you with this over the phone.

you then can transfer oil to your distillation setup. I can give more details on distillation if you DM me.

I can walk you thorough much of this on the phone. DM me. I am very fair priced.
I can also help draft SOPs for your organization, Batch Records source equipment, contact vendors etc.

If you are interested in developing in-house analytics (like HPLC) to test your flower, oil. distillate, etc. I can help you develop that capability. More than happy to talk to your investors to help you guys get up to speed.

4 Likes

Oh, Man, you’re me last year. There’s some learnin’ to be done before you are a) safe and b) productive, and it just doesn’t happen overnight. My suggestion is that you log some reading time on this forum and only ask a question where you really, truly, cannot find an answer after a good-faith effort. Folks on here are very knowledgeable and incredibly helpful, but many of them also sell their knowledge, so they will be more receptive to helping you out when it is clear that you’re not wasting their time.

That doesn’t look like a Capna in the photo to me, but the rest of @anon81723932 's advice is sound. If you are extracting at a low enough temperature, a bunch of stuff you don’t want never gets into your solvent. If you are above about -40, you’re going to need to add steps to crash the fats and chlorphyll out of solution and filter them out of your “tea”.

The ethanol that you are using as a solvent will make up about 90% of what you get out of your extraction machine. You need to concentrate the desirable oils that are in that solution and to recover the ethanol so you can use it again. The (easy) way to do that is with a rotary evaporator. If you don’t have one, I happen to know that @asher has one sitting in his garage in Oregon that he would let go very reasonably. The principal of these is that you put the “tea” into a big rotating flask, draw a vacuum on it, and add just enough heat to get it to boil at that level of vacuum. I use .08 mPA and 50c, your mileage may vary. At the same time, you run cold water through the tubing of the condensers of the rotovap, and the boiled-off ethanol collects on the cold coils and runs down into a collection flask. The big challenge is keeping that fluid cold - you’ll spend more on a good cooler than you will on the rest of the rotovap.

You’ll notice the stuff in the flask stop boiling at a certain point, and it will begin to coat the inside of the flask like motor oil. This is usually when you’re down to just oil. This is where you shut the thing off, drain the vacuum, decant the oil into something (it is easier when it is still warm) and pull the ethanol out of the collection flasks.

Then it’s decarb, and distill if you want, and even crash out into a crystal if that’s your goal. I won’t go into all that here, but you are welcome to message me if I can be helpful. You can also find lots of posts here, many with instructions.

Most of all keep in mind that this business has a big learning curve, but you shouldn’t have to learn with your life. Wear protective gear, especially eye wear, at least until you know what you’re doing. And even then.

Good luck!

2 Likes

I could be a potential consultant. Experience in short path ,wiped film and roto-vape.

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

1 Like