AMI Ultrafiltration (UF) Membrane Elements | Applied Membranes Inc. Is this what’s inside? I’m new to this process in a bucket n still man currently ha
Back of the envelope?
Cryo chiller (skips winterizing requirement) - $70k
Cryo chiller associated tanks/pumps/etc. - $20k
Falling film evaporator - $100k
Natural gas fired boiler - $35k
Commercial chiller (solvent recovery) - $75k
Vacuum pumps - $30k
Assorted other pumps, hoses, connectors, etc - Call it $70k to be generous
That’s $400k for a reasonably complete system that should handle at least 500L/hr, using mostly off the shelf equipment.
EDIT: Also, doubling of capacity on the above system would not require a doubling of cost. Likely no more than $200k more to go to 1000L/hr, and I dunno another $200k or so to double it again. Not sure, but I’m not running the numbers to check.
Your system is designed to remove fats and waxes, which in my opinion, an efficient process shouldn’t need to do. Never extract something you don’t want if you can possibly avoid it. Most people do this by doing cryo, which is also a bit of a band-aid, but IMO it’s the simplest well-tested and not terrible way to do it.
The solvent separation portion is the much more interesting piece of the puzzle to me, and the area that I think that nanofiltration/ultra really has a place for in our industry, and could be truly transformative… especially with the promise of graphene membranes.
I’m targeting 1000 lb/hr per system, and my equipment capex will probably work out to less than one of your machines based on the numbers you’ve provided. That’s for a 1000 lb/hr ground biomass to crude oil system. If it costs me as much as 500k USD for my whole system I’ll be shocked. Under 300k USD is probably a reasonably accurate guess, excluding the facility cost of course. My opex will be a little bit higher, but not by much, and I think I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve to work on that portion in the coming year or so too.
Of course, if I were to be charging hourly for my design time and R&D it would substantially increase that number. Nothing is off the shelf at this scale, it’s all custom engineered systems.
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Simple explanation of diffrence in nanofilyration and revursed osmosis
So winterizing nano
Solvent recovery revursed osmosis
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Looks familiar 
Evonics
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Gotta be carefull with the membranes they are expensive and easy to mess up.
When I called Evonik a few months ago and they asked for the molecular weight of what I was trying to filter, they knew what I was doing immediately haha.
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Did they hook you up? Or not tell you anything?
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They gave me quite a bit of info actually. I’ll have to hunt down my notes, and when I do I’ll be happy to share what I’ve got. I have an extensive background in desalination RO systems so this concept is right in my wheelhouse. I shelved the project because the inherent inefficiencies in the system prevented it from fitting into our current process flow.
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Do you think this is an easy way or for some quick work with long term problems and higher long term costs? Like how fast would the filteres gun up running 1000+ gal a day? Or do you think the good ol cryo dunk not pull all that stuff out and roto is better? This process is alien to me so trying to understand
Point me in the right direction I’ll get the fucker built. So it goes nano pipes first for waxes, then ro pipes for etho?
Where do the waxes go? And where does the ethanol go? Noah do you have pics of oil ran through and out? What consistency is the crude? Is your crude particulate filtered at all before? Is so what micron is it filter to? Do you charcoal filter before or after your process?
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125l per hour is 55lbs an hour and would need more charcoal filtering and some roto time. 55lb an hour is a lil slow in my world. And idk how often you’d have to replace those filters but I’m sure they ain’t cheap. Cool concept though. It would be great for really rich ppl with no skill sets. Although idk if you could filter for color enough when pulling at room temp
2 to 3 year lifespan for the membranes. We have never experienced fouling, but if you did you would run pure solvent through the system.
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Unless your energy is free, the Ecosce Process very quickly makes it’s money back. Ballpark figures were $.70 combined per gram cost for winterization or cryo extraction and falling film desolvation vs $.06 for the Ecosce Process. That’s with cap ex amortized over 4 years doing an average 1000lb/day extraction. The volume limiting factor for most ethanol/heptane labs is the amount of solvent they can have in their building. When you don’t have to spend long hours chilling and then evaporating your solvent, you can increase your throughput volume without having to change your building occupancy code. Keep your solvent working, not chilling.
There are also qualitative advantages, since you are exposing your winterized product to 90% less heat energy. Nice to preserve more acid forms and terpenes for THC market customers, especially.
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Do you or plan to make anything for the non-commercial types?
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For anyone using a standard cryo or other off the shelf process, it’s not impossible that you’re correct. You asked for a cheaper way to do it, we were talking capex, so I showed a cheaper way to do it on a capex basis.
However, I believe you’re going to have a hard time selling people in this industry on something that costs more up front. Everyone is focused on today and tomorrow, not the long term.
There are much cheaper ways to do it on an opex basis as well. Electricity is pretty cheap where I am, and natural gas is even cheaper (about half on a per joule/kWh basis). There are other ways to get 80-90% savings on your energy budget for solvent recovery, and completely eliminate the energy cost of running cryo.
My numbers suggest my process at the 500-1000 lb/hr mark should be running in the single digit pennies per gram cost. I also don’t really have to deal with the solvent limits you guys do.
With that said, what you’ve done is still pretty cool.
Sell it to the CO2 guys, they tend to be well capitalized and have to winterize basically no matter what. I think this would be a good addition to a Vitalis or other decent size CO2 extractor workflow.
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We are working on publishing an interactive version of our TCO model on our website. We have not been able to realistically model an alternative that gets even close in total cost per output unit. Plugging your scenario into our model still shows almost $.24 per gram output cost with capex amortized in just for desolvation (not winterization).
Upfront cost is lower with the Omega Mk1, and ops cost is lower, as well. We believe everyone will be using this process instead of evaporation in the near future. Expending tons of energy to pull vacuum, heat, cryo-chill, etc. just does not make sense when you could be running a single pump on a few amps instead. All your cost drivers are reduced simultaneously: labor is significantly reduced, c1d1 or c1d2 floor space is significantly reduced, energy is reduced to practically nil…
If upfront cost is a concern, we have partnered with several financial partners who are able to lease or loan.
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That’s going to be pretty hard to do accurately without knowing what kind of equipment I’m using, what my local energy costs are, and what my equipment setup is. In your facility with your models, maybe. I note that’s a lot lower than the $0.71 or whatever you claimed before, and recovery is way more expensive than cryo on an energy basis.
So you’re saying that your capex is less than $400k for 500L/hr of capacity? That $400k setup I ballparked would handle cryo chilling the ethanol, as well as the solvent recovery portion, at a true full system throughput of at least 500L/hr.
Payback will heavily depend on your local energy cost. I can run the heat and chillers required for 250L/hr at a cost of well under $2,000/month. Even if you drop that to zero, the payback period for one of your systems would be somewhere in the region of four years. That’s not terrible ROI, and if your energy costs are substantially higher, it could make sense.
No argument here. It’s also not what I’m going to be doing. I believe I pointed out previously that I think cryo is basically an ugly hack. But it’s the easiest off the shelf option for most folks, currently.
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No plans yet, but if we see significant demand we may change our minds.
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Bootleg it
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Noah,
If you would like a licensed facility to put your equipment in to prove to the cannabis community it works email me or DM danny@caliherba.com I’m in California
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Amazing. This is serious advancement,provided it works as described.