has anybody ever used or heard of this type of extraction method?
i ran into this company NES that has a patented automated system
supposedly it’s faster and cleaner than everything else out there now
i checked and it definitely is patented by them
here is the link to the patent documents
let me know what you guys think
super curious about this
could be a game changer
On first pass reading the patent, it’s a somewhat interesting idea, though it’s not really a true solventless process. Technically the extraction portion is “solventless” but you’ve still got to dunk it in ethanol afterwards.
It looks like you basically heat up the biomass with a hot gas/air stream, then spray ethanol over the gas stream to pick up all of the terpenes and cannabinoids. You’ve still got cannabis oil and terpenes stuck in ethanol at the end of the process.
Not all that dissimilar in concept to bubbling the output from your volcano through some everclear to trap the good stuff.
I believe it could let you extract without worrying about chlorophylls and fats/waxes, which is a nice perk. The chlorophyll starts to break down around 300 f I believe.
The downside is it looks like hot gas extractions are not so great for yield - you only get about half to 80% of your cannabinoids.
Could you tune that and make it better? Probably, but my gut says the lost cannabinoids outweigh any other benefits if you’re operating at any kind of scale.
Pretty cool for the craft/hobbyist/prosumer level though.
I have been thinking about a thermal vaporization extraction for a while now, inspired by my Life Saber. With variable heat and draw, the act of vaporizing seems to be a fairly selective distillation process, directly off of the biomass. I was thinking that a long stainless tube could hold the biomass, with an auger running the length to move material through the tube as well as tumbling the biomass for fuller extraction on its way through. A wrap of heat tape outside the tube could control preheat temp, and heated air could be supplied by various means to pass through the biomass tube. Instead of capturing with ethanol, why not use a condenser and cold trap set up. It shouldn’t be too hard to add a hopper to feed the tube, along with a container to collect spent material, while keeping the heated gasses flowing properly. Depending on preheat, air, and condenser temps, direct extraction could be dialed in for high selectivity. As far as inefficiency goes, the post extracted material could be extracted further through traditional methods. This could possibly be a great way to at least extract terps before moving on to traditional methods for cannabinoid extraction.