Pretty sure I am pulling substantial fats on recent fresh frozen which are clogging the 20micron screens at bottom of extraction vessels.
Check out the pic - Baffled as I running VERY Cold
Here’s whats WEIRD:
- Solvent in Jacketed 60# Tank at -60C (Unistat chilling and chilled at temp for 2 hours before running)
- Material Vessels @ -55C (huber 902 chilling)
- Using 3-5:1 Solvent to Material Ratio
- Soak Time is 5-10mins
- Material Socks frozen in Cryo @ -90C prior to running.
On the 3rd and 4th sock of the runs, transferring solvent from extraction to collection slowed way down, realized was getting partial obstruction. Has happened on last 3 runs
Looking at the filters looks like fat/wax.
I am using N2 to push and at certain times during the run I have 40-50PSI in the materail vessel with the solvent.
Could pressure (50psi) and soak time be crashing fats?
Also wondering if recovering too fast where solvent recovered back into jacketed tank is not getting enough residency time to come back to target temp before injecting over the next sock… At most 2/3rd of the tank could be in the system at one time between what is recovering and the next sock soaking.
60# solvent tank
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Could it be thca? Maybe drop a chunk in methanol and see what happens.
How are you checking temp?
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whats the smaller pore size filter that you use for filtration of the waxes? 20 microns ?
Floats on water and dissolves in ETHO
That’s the challenge is we are running without a thermocouple inside of the jacket a tank so even running -60 Celsius fluid through the tank at high speeds doesn’t actually mean we were at that temp although the tank is frozen absolutely solid and crusted
Now I’m thinking of the possibility that I am actually crash de-waxing fats in the material column during 10 minute soaks and @ 40PSI?
Run style: I’m am continually running cold solvent over the sock (fully submerged under solvent) while simultaneously transferring to collection while recovering.
Butane will always catch fats. Even close to -80c and they’ll still drop
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Ah yeah trying to calc temp without a thermocouple is an absolute crap shoot. I’ve been down as low as -80 in the chiller but inline almost no temp drop. However that’s in real time. If you are chilling down for 2 hours you should be WELL down to temp. It typically only takes 5-10 minutes of re circ in the jackets for our ethanol to come down to -70
That’s highly dependent on what type of chiller you’re using
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100%
I got little wordy. Underling point of what I meant to say. “Temp of the chiller does not equal temp in line”
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put them in a polar solvent and see what happens
Dissolved, then heated them they turned black and did not melt - definitely fats
Thinking I am crashing fats in the column.
Running a 6 micron filter paper above the 20micron screen as well.
Could I be running vessels too cold @ -60C and making them act more love a de wax column?
Testing som other material to eliminate that variable as the fats have only become visibly present across the last week and a half… still pretty baffled.
I have been having a similar problem. I extracted a strain heavy in Terpinolene last week at -65C and -70C, pulled horrible fats both times. Also usually have 40PSI+ in my material columns, going to try way less pressure next time when extracting that strain.
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Did you chill the bio and or column prior to extraction?
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Yes, chilled down to -80C for atleast 24 hours in a vac bag. Unfortunately my columns aren’t jacketed, and I don’t soak. I flow over the material and try to get it into the collection pot as fast as the process permits.
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I’d guess everything is warming up while you’re assembling the column. Chill the column and I’m fairly certain you’ll be good to go
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Thanks for the advice, that was my first thought too. I’m using a 50/50 gas blend, so the Butane doesn’t help my cause. I can’t chill my columns right now (in future plans), I will go with insulating the outside of the columns for now. Hopefully that helps 
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Strange as I am running both chilled columns, chilled biomass, and chilled solvent and still pulling fats.
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