Still new here first off absolutely love this forum I find my self here more than social media now haha
But any who still have yet to run my new spd set up but just trying to make sure all my ps An qs are in order. as for my crude I’ve been taking my biomass An running it threw my cls witch is a 2.5lb system (back breaking work when trying to hit 1l ) purging it for a night in the vac oven then throwing it in to 10:1 etho/Heptane from bvv (witch I don’t know if that was a good choice either instead of using 200) but mixing it in warm letting it get to room temp then filtering it then throw it in the freezer witch gets to about -10deg then filtering it again with DE (Celite) An activated carbon then back to the freezer till I do my next run An from the remaining dry ice (passive running sucks too ) from that one I use it to do my last tru winterization on dry ice in the cooler filter it again then in the roto it goes then in the storage jar back in the freezer .
My question is there anyway I can better the process or does it sound about right I know it’s prolly alil excessive but I don’t mind it if it’s better or I guess not wrong An will leaving it in the freezer for a couple days or even a week in the etho/Heptane cause any degradation or harm is there any possible way to get it lighter cause it comes out dark still with a red hue biomass is maybe alil less than 6-8 months old but supper trimmy
Another question what are ppl using for there heater Recirculator’s fluid wise that can possibly be picked up locally.
An last I posted in my last post but wasn’t very much info on a 2l I know 1l is preferred bit would 6-800 be too little to run(I’m getting really antsy haha)
but if there anything that would be better or possibly make life easier please do tell Thanks in advanced
suggested reading
- No need to purge crude that’s going to be winterized?
- Winterizing.. yeah
- Verifying my winterization/filtration technique
Questions:
Are you recovering the solvent you use for winterization?
How much are you using?
Have you added 5% water to your heptane denatured?
Have you considered using beverage grade ethanol?
Yea I’m recovering it in the roto once done an I’m doing 1l to 100 g so 10:1
I have not added water to it I thought it was ready to go out the bucket An I was using everclear but the bvv 710 extraction solvent was cheaper due to the heptane mix an cut out all that alcohol mamma jamma for there tax crap. Why would I add water?
Realistically you can start your distillation as long as you have about 100g of crude. When running less crude you have to be mindful of your temps, they will increase faster than if you had a full liter in there. The whole boiling flask needs to be half full thing isn’t really true, in fact I have never run my 2L with a full liter of crude, i find 600-800mL is a nice size run.
Curious about something. If one doesn’t have the funds for a rotovap, could they invest in a simple distillation system (vigreux column and a condenser with flasks) to recover ethanol? I’m sure you could recover EtOH with an SPD, but it’d be nice to have a separate system for decarbing and recovery. How efficient is rotovap vs. SPD vs. simple distillation setup for both decarb and recovery?
Reflux isn’t really needed for what you’re doing I bet a simple claisson adapter and a simple liebig condenser is all that’s needed. A coil condenser would be better though. If you have a cold trap for SPD you could use that too
You could even do what I did . Pieced together parts off ebay and throw a 20 dollar condenser on top of a cheap used buchi
although there are other opinions.
if you’re recovering it, and only using it to winterize, I would use 190 without heptane, and not bother with the potential complication.
The cost really only comes into play when your going through drums of the stuff. at $75gal for drinkable 190, and a whopping 10% assumed loss for every 100g you winterize, is it worth it?
your call.