Looks like sugars, sounds like sugars. Does it taste like burnt sugary bitter?
If it’s water soluble the solution is def a LLE with alkane and brine, keep the alkane layer.
You can also filter the crude (make sure it’s good and hot) through a very fine mesh screen when adding to the hopper. Du this to the input for terp strip and you’ll get a bunch of thick sticky gunk. The sugars.
Did OP answer this? The answer is the key to which door you open next!
LLE from the polar solvent used for extraction into a non-polar solvent (hexane, heptane) will not only take the sugars along with the polar/aqueous layer but also a significant portion of your tepenes/lighter volatiles will be separated from your crude as well. This added benefit will make life easier in general…whether using SPD or WFE. Another beneficial step in the process involves dropping a couple handfuls of mol sieve into the oil/alkane layer after you’ve separated the alcohol/aqueous layer. Then filtering the aklane/oil at 1-2 microns to remove any particulate from the sieve and the grinding/agitating processes prior to and during the extraction process.
Following these steps my boiling flask after first pass was a pice of cake to clean. No Alconox or scrubbing. Just a quick swirl of acetone after removing it form the hot mantle and boom…like brand new.
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Yes it is. After recovering my ethanol I did a Hexane/Saline LLE to remove all water solubles. This showed a significant improvement in any residue left in the wiped film when it was time to clean.
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Incorporate water in your cleaning runs on the unit. Typically when the unit clogs from carbon build up just cool down the unit to around 60c then send water first through the unit if the clog is really bad then iso then water again then end with iso. This will clean the system to looking brand new.
Run your 1st pass at 140c 2,000 micron
This will avoid high cbd in your terpenes from the term strip.
Your crude is going to have this issue from ethanol extraction. Make sure you’re at least filtering through .3 or 1 micron filters to end your filtration.
You could also extract with 70-99% IPA instead of ethanol for a better filtration on the alcohol slurry post extraction. The water content in the IPA will
help filter out water solubles (polymerized chlorophyll)
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Yes I have been running water through the wiped film for my cleaning protocol to help wash down some of the water soluble material. I have been doing a 10micron filtration to speed up throughput but I’m not sure if it’s worth it lately with the cleaning. I don’t have the required materials for large scale hexane/water LLE at the moment either so I might go down to a 1.5micron filter and see how that helps.
I’ve noticed that the ethanol extraction seems to be troublesome that’s for sure in regards to post extraction processing. Only been at it a month now, so we’ll see how things keep progressing.
Appreciate everyone’s input.
that’s a huge range. how does the solvent affect filtration? particulates are particulates. adding water may ppt more stuff, and that stuff may now be filtered out, but the concept that more water will make the water solubles drop out doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I agree with you. If anything, extracting with a high water content solvent would just, in my opinion, have a detrimental effect on the extraction efficacy.
The only place for water in extraction is a LLE, aside from solventless of course, I would think.
I hope you’re finding solutions to your problem, don’t give up on ethanol extraction if your goal is distillate. I have found that it’s a great method, especially if you’re worried about through put. However it really has to be cryo in my opinion or else you’re right all the post processing really sucks! That -40 to -60 range seems to do us alot of good, and there are some cheaper yet dependable options for -80 Chillers. Hopefully you can make the jump, if not now than in the future.
Hexane/Water wash fixes the problem. I was running at -80 for awhile and was concerned about extraction efficacy and after getting some tests back I’m pulling the same cannabinoids with -40 or -80 so I will go back to -80C. But aside from that I did some hexane/water washes and the crude through the wiped film was worlds of difference. I’ll just get a 20 or 50L reactor so I can do large scale LLE in it as well as decarb to free up the rotovaps.
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If I’m understanding correctly: If one ran 2:1 crude:mct oil (or canola) into a wfe on first pass all the sugars would come of the waste side dissolved in the mct oil, and clean disty would distill over to the condenser?
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Do not use MCT. It doesn’t work the same way. You want an oil with the lowest possible working vapor pressure at those temps.
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What other oils besides canola oil would you suggest trying?
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For those that have used canola oil or some other carrier, I’d love to further understand the mechanism for how this works. The sugar would still be exposed to the same heat and I’m not sure I see how diluting the crude would stop the sugars from popping or distilling and getting onto the internal condenser and contaminating the distillate.
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Could you kindly enlighten me on the stepwise procedure of hexane/water wash you follow to clean up your crude? I am interested in doing the same for reducing the acidity of my crude prior to distillation. Your help is highly appreciated.