I’m running 2 ETS skids and changed out mol sieve’s on both skids last night. After 30 minutes of running this morning both skids recovery coils got clogged. They weren’t new beads but ones that were baked. Is that an indication those beads are at the end of their life span. They were baked for about 4 hours at 110c
While you were running was your thermal dynamic on the cold recovery coil proper? Too cold? Too hot?
As for the beads, they can be regenerated( baked off) but if not stored properly will hold onto moisture collected from the relative atmosphere prior to loading, which you don’t want. Re bake and then use to remove moisture.
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Yeah we had our heater and chiller set to its normal operating temps. And yeah when we took them out of the oven they sat in an unsealed bag for a few hours before loading into machine. Should be heat sealing the bags prior to loading.
Doing some troubleshooting I’m able to get nitrogen to build pressure on the gauge that is downstream from the recovery coil fairly quickly.
It seems like it could be a corken issue but considering it happened on both skids and the other has been operating fine since blowing out the recovery coil I’m not fully convinced on that.
I’ll give that thread a read today, got the thing up and running again. Thanks fellas
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Delta Absorbents suggests lower regen temps than many suggested in that thread.
Regeneration: 4A Molecular Sieve regenerated and reused. To regenerate the sieve you need to remove the adsorbed moisture and other materials. To regenerate 4A Molecular Sieve heat to a temperature of 250ƒ to 450ƒ.
Storage: Keep 4A Molecular Sieve in an air-tight container until ready for use to avoid unintended moisture adsorption. 4A Molecular Sieve Moisture Control Products - Delta Adsorbents
And
3A Molecular Sieve regenerated and reused. To regenerate the sieve you need to remove the adsorbed moisture and other materials. To regenerate 3A Molecular Sieve heat to 250ƒ.
…but yeah pulling them warm and not sealing them up is not doing you any favors.
They also have a finite number of regen cycles. Which is where testing them every time makes sense.
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Yeah I think these are the same beads from the beginning of the skids life lmfao I’m not 100% sure tho I’ll try the exothermic test as soon as I can to see where they’re at.
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Both skids both got clogged coils again after about an hour of running lol
You clearly don’t know how to flush and refresh your beads, also stop running with water. Your problem is running wet material. You need to learn how to flush and zap your heads so they don’t do this.
lol ok buddy, take a fucking hike. We run dry biomass with ~ 10% moisture.
Then you are clearly not operating properly or you have a intake leak on the recovery pump that’s sucking air in and turning it to water.
The only valuable and known process to reuse beads is a tech that’s been around for a very long time. And you aren’t practicing it or understand why this is occuring. That’s why you are asking people for help. Do you want to know how to do it right or not?
How about this. After the end of the day, what do you do to your beads and how do you maintain them at the end of each working day?
If you think your solvent has a lot of water in it you could try moving the sieves to a room temp liquid line instead of the cold vapor line if your system has one.
I believe this is a more ideal spot to trap moisture.
If you think the problem is really bad then I would recommend doing the drying as a standalone step, not during a run. Sometimes during normal operation you don’t run the solvent tank dry of solvent which can leave some moisture behind. Also there could be some rust build up in your tank from the water so you might want to check/replace it.
If you are able, it would probably be best to transfer the solvent completely from one tank to another while having a canister of mol sieve on a warm liquid line. You could do this using a warm/cold tank setup or you could use your collection pot and Corken.
Make sure the length and width of your mol sieve canister matches the mass flow rate of the liquid/gas so you get adequate contact time. I would make the liquid line canister pretty big.
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Now that’s something constructive. I do understand the concept behind regen on the beads although I was negligent on the bake time and getting them into the column right away. I’m not too sure what can be done on a daily basis to help with the life span of the beads.
This is absolutely not how you manage and remediate water as a issue. Will cause same issues. He needs to extract his beads and do a flush and vacuum pull. Then re distill his solvent till all water is out and repeat the process after each distillation.
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Also, don’t forget to blow out your coils so you don’t leave any water in them.
Yes again that’s not how you treat them. Baking then won’t really change much.
The process that’s know that works well is either butane or propane. I have always heard propane is best.
Remove your bead column column.
Flush liquid propane in reverse.
Then use nitrogen or argon and vapor flush the hydrocarbon fluid out entirely. Now you are close to being ready.
Next step is pull vacuum on it while there’s a heating jacket on it or something warm. Once it has sat under vacuum close both valves in front and rear of your canister.
Hold under vacuum untill next use.
The hydrocarbon will flush out all water, done at room temp specifically. This is what removes the water.
The vapor push flushes everything else out and dried it out by using a form of molecular drag to displace all other molecules.
Vacuum prepared it for use and keeps it fresh.
If you don’t follow these steps you aren’t doing it right.
The issue with baking it out is no matter how much you bake it out under vacuum the moment you open your oven it’s soaked again as it cools down and absorbs air.
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Yes that’s true. I forgot to add blowing the canister out should always be done while blowing the same inert gas out the coil. This will remove moisture and dry the coil entirely. Without these steps it’s a failure across the board.
LoL, I think everyone understands the beads need to be replaced or regenerated when they’re saturated.
Honestly they get so dusty and crumbly after regen it’s probably better/easier to just replace them. Especially if you want him to do that long and complicated procedure you posted which seems unnecessary.
Also, he effectively redistills the solvent every time he does a run, doesn’t he? Why doens’t the water stay in the collection pot or finished oil?
Clearly it has been proven time and time again that the simple distillation we are doing in the collection pot does not stop moisture and it co-distills. Seems like a fractional system would be necessary to remove it.
Running the liquid through a properly sized desiccant would be much faster and easier than redistilling the solvent multiple times, which probably wouldn’t work.
This is definitely not the problem, lol. Even if he were running live resin it’s not the problem.