Hello all, quick question. I have crude that I know is winterized and mostly decarbed. Im being told to rotovape for 20 mins at 220 F, than to pass by a micron filter before running through thin film.
I have a lab rep saying that after rotovaping you can not do anything else but straight to thin film.
He wants to shortpath it than straight to thin film ?
Is there a test I can do to see how much ethanol is in the crude ?
Wondering is the residuals solvents would let me know how much ethanol is left in this crude.
Thank you all and I have potency COA if that helps.
is the crude dissolved in ethanol or has the ethanol already been removed?
RS test should be able to tell you if you have etoh in the crude, but you might have to ask the lab to give you those numbers exactly depending on where you are.
What equipment are you working with? When you say thin film are you talking about a wiped film or a falling/rising film?
What is the liquid in your roto bath?
Pretty sure putting it through the shortpath will distill any ethanol left in the crude. Rotovap gets majority if not all the ethanol out. Decarbing it can boil off even more ethanol. If it’s been through both you shouldn’t have a problem with ethanol. The COA should let you know if it passes the residual solvents. Otherwise the only ‘eye test’ I do to know if ethanol is in the crude, is if it has a very low viscosity at room temp.
You need to filter while still in solvent, not after you remove it all.
Residual solvent tests will tel you how much solvent is left but its kind of pointless if you plan to decarb or distill on the short path or wiped film. Decarbing will remove all the solvent as it happens at a temp above ethanol’s boiling point. Wiped film will also remove all volatilies as the first step of the process.