Hey everyone this is my first post although I have been lurking for a while and I love this forum.
I was looking for advice on reusing solvents, been using an in line CLS for about 2 years and have just ventured into some live runs. I was hoping to find out information on reuse of butane and if it needs dumping after live?
Thanks SM.
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If you distill your butane through 3a molecular sieve to remove water from the butane then you can reuse it forever.
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Link?
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Thanks @ScoobyDoobie I will grab one.
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In addition to using 3A molecular sieve to keep water out of your system, there’s another kind of molecular sieve, 13X I believe it is, that will help deodorize your butane pull off some terpenes during recovery and want to switch strains without cross contaminating taste.
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Use 3a and 4a and 13x is mostly for liquid solvent. Zeolite is what the substance is and the a means angstrom which is rhe pore size so it can absorb different thngs. Water,terps etc. wrap tou sieve in aheating blanket especially if ifs not vertical to make sure tou dont get liquid poolng in rhe bottom since your running such col solvent. At the minimum reactivate every week or sooner by pkacing in vac oven at a high temp or wven a household oven. Waych out for dust use a 1 micron sceen at rhe end before it goes to your pump, and if you use etho at all you can use rhat the wash away the dust and dry out your etho as a bonus
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Wiki says 4a for saturated hydrocarbons, and 3a for non saturated hydrocarbons
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But what does that mean?
Ur hydrocarbon should never be oil laden when going through the sieve right?
If vapors only how would u ever run oil laden solvent through it?
Think I’m gonna start running my pointed up instead sideways too… I may turn it at end to make sure all gone…
But technically we shouldn’t have liquid butane there right… Do I need to start wrapping my sieve to keep warmer?
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Some more info I dunno I think they do their job regardless of orientation, mine got pretty darn warm after that live run being horizontally mounted.
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For water removal: Can you run liquid hydro carbon through your beads or must it be a vapor?
I believe 13x can be used for liquid then run the vapor thru the usual 3&4a beads. Its also a good way to rinse tour beads of dust for both kinds using liquid
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Whats the difference? Would recovery gas be unsaturated?
in this case unsaturated vs saturated means has double (or triple) bond(s) vs no double bonds.
rather than “has weed in it” or not.
ie Butane vs Butene
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Interesting. If I read the wiki right shouldn’t everyone be using 4a instead of 3?
I use 13x for my mol sieve.
In its description:
It is the sodium form of the Type X crystal structure with pore diameters of approximately 10Ă…. It can adsorb all molecules that can be adsorbed on 3A, 4A, and 5A molecular sieve. Type 13X can also adsorb molecules such as aromatics and branched-chain hydrocarbons, which have large critical diameters.
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Beautiful. No other beads just %100 13x?
That’s all I’ve been using for a bit. Wash them out first before first use. Send clean solvent through and wash all the fines out. Good practice to do with all mol sieve, as well.
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What benefit does washing add? Prevents filters from clogging, would I distill the solvent to leave fines behind? Thanks dred, always here to help me when I need it!