Removing alcohol sugars

Any SOPs available on removing alcohol sugars from ethanol extraction?

We’re currently getting our chiller below 40c when extracting hemp material but seem to run into alcohol sugars still pre prepping for distillation.

Yah there’s a few around. Search and read.

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Already tried t5 and t-41 from what I’ve read. Hasn’t helped any at all. Sugars still come up.

Did you mean - 40C?
Do you take in-process temps to ensure you’re never getting above -40C?
Do you pre-chill your biomass? To what temp?
What temp are you filtering at?

Keeping everything cold on the extraction end is easier than remediating downstream. Just my two cents

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Yes, I meant -40C and yes we do keep track of in-process temps as well.
We do pre-chill our biomass @ -60C
Filter right after extraction then filter through a media at room temps.

Was informed citric acid may help breakdown the sugars but tried that on a small batch and still having it form up.

Interesting - you never get above -40C?
If you have the time and resources, try extracting half the biomass you normally would in one run. Sometimes we get sugars if we pack our extraction bags too full.
You can try hot filtration as your load your distillation apparatus but that doesn’t work great.

When you tried T-41 and T-5 did you have your extract dissolved in an alkane or an alcohol?

Easily attained with membrane ultrafiltration.

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It’s dissolved in the alcohol

Try this, evaporate the alcohol and dissolve it in an alkane and try the t5 again.

T5 doesn’t work so well when you use alcohol as the solvent because the components you want to remove have a similar affinity for the alcohol as with the bentonite, so there’s much less of an influence on the components in solution to adhere to the surfaces of the clay.

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LLE can do it

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Using a nonpolar solvent for a second step is best. Dissolve in heptane and brine wash works very well. If that’s not an option, you may try louching the oil out of solution and separating it directly from the water/alcohol. Sugar likes water

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yeah, which makes me wonder about the proof of OP’s extraction solvent. if’n they’s really 'xtractin at -40, and they’re getting sugars, they’ve either got water in there or ground their material to dust.

@revoluti0n; do you own a proofing gauge? (are you extracting hammer milled material?)

has your in-house HPLC operator come up with a method to track your solvent constituents? (did you start with heptane in there? is it gone? water? Terpenes? Ethyl Acetate?!?)

in addition to water, you’ll pick up terpenes, and presumably other stuff over time. you should track the proof of your solvent, and re-proof if/when necessary.

I also smell and taste mine. if it doesn’t smell good, wtf would I let it near my precious cannabis?

fractional distillation or molsieves (proof up beads) will solve the proofing issue, and might get rid of some of the terpenes. Activated charcoal will often remove off odors distillation won’t. if that doesn’t work it gets relegated to heat transfer fluid (dry ice slurries in cold traps etc).

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is this true?

With membranes, most things are possible.

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Full removal isnt possible you can remove about 90% of them. It still isnt clean enough to run through a wiper and not get char that builds up

DM me, I’ve got a simple and great solution

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Unfortunately I was overly optimistic here, reduction is easily attained but not complete elimination. Essentially monosaccharides all remain while oligomers are removed. You will get a reduction in char that will have an impact on cleaning schedule but not the complete elimination of it.

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