This is a thread to discuss and educate you guys on this technology. The spd-7 uspd (ultra short path distillation). This is a thread not to attack people but to discuss our unique and innovative approach to new technology and results in your lab with solutions you can only find at summit. We will not discuss our users personal sops but I will give away any technical and operational information as you need.
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That’s pretty rad looking. How’s the functionality compared to regular spd with the horizontal head, instead of vertical? Looks extremely intriguing.
Is that first coil acting as the condensor, rather than the outside being jacketed?
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Head and first trap are running a grams style condenser. Why not the traps as well ? Is it because dry ice is cheaper than a cold chiller?
But it is cool and ultra short
What specifically is this style of short path used for?? What makes it better than other options on the market?
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Also, do you have any ms or molecular weight distribution data on your low boiling fraction? Just curious if there is any improvement in low boiling volatile retention compared to some of your other systems?
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P.s. I met you at the OK Cannacon and I bought some stuff from you, so I’m not a hater.
the head is actually inside the flask, it goes in just about to the center probe joint location. the condenser is like a normal condenser on a head. it has a unique design inside that controls molecular condensate accumulation and blow by during distillation. the first trap is basically the “laminar” and should be treated as such. the two traps are the traps used to protect the pumps. the main condenser requires a much more powerful chiller/heater on it because the speeds are highly excessive. we have been quoted speeds up to 10/l per hour by customers. most are not willing to share their sops. we have seen numerous people pull 150c at 2-3 liters per hour and that wasn’t dialed in or tuned - it was their first try prior to dialing in their sop. that number was without sweep gas… the process for hot condenser tech would be applying your hot temp at the condenser and the laminar tempos would be in the first trap. a lower range can be used. so bringing down your overall distillation temperatures would shave the condenser hot tek, and first trap temps down considerably.
this systems speed really shines when applied with diffusion, and hot pass is exceptionally fast.
there are two methods of running it. the first method is sort of secret, well just not shared - this is the first pass method. it requires a considerable amount of effort to prepare the initial load material prior to distillation. this is due to high speeds and less “action” or the absence of “action” in the head. the easiest way to explain a basic procedure is:
winterize
carbon scrub
water wash
neutralize
chrom short bed flash pull
evap solvent
then remove and dry the material prior to loading this short path.
the particular steps users are doing we wont share but this one method of prep works really well.
the second method is already using a refined product. so if you had some really green nasty stuff and decided to do a hot first pass and shoot it through; then repeat the earlier described steps with more accuracy and larger chrom column load for remediation and color removal you will achieve a extremely valuable end product.
the system draws vapor right off the top and so not having the height and action zone on this type of system changes the distillation sop.
in any instance there is a tool for every job, some people are using this unit for first pass out the door runs, some people use it for refinement and high tech distillation process.
this unit is very fast and is available in 5L configuration as well. it can achieve much lower vacuum and insane speeds with quality/clarity output. you cannot however run this setup on a budget ancillary gear combination. you need a severely over build vacuum array and a higher wattage cooling/heating setup. we recommend full diffusion on a 22l setup and dual e2/30/soge on a 5L setup. anything less would operate out of parameter. everything must be clean and no water should be present, and great caution and care must be taken during the heads side of the distillation. what im getting at is the type of short path that this is, does not like water in the system or highly volatile compounds because by nature and design it does not capture it effectively-PER SAY. the traps do a wonderful job, but the remnant should be avoided and eliminated in the system so the traps and can operate dry. even a third post trap would effectively prevent the machine from operating correctly if there is water or alcohol filled in the trap flasks. a little bit is okay as the pumps will slowly evaporate the volatile fluid surfaces and sweep the molecules out and eject them out the back. a large amount of this effect is not desired.
i hope this answers some of your questions and opens up for more.
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I figured as much about the high boilers. But I can see the usefulness of a fast first past system. If the roundbottoms were submerged in ln2 would you expect the same amount of blowby in the pump? Or could one potentially trap a valuable cutting fraction on this in “first pass” style if these 2 traps were colder?
Some very cool tech here sir
@spdking Cant you only load this SPD half way? So a 22 liter can only run 10 liters pretty much? I’ve heard of people getting 2.5 liters an hour off your 55 50 head, what would make this one better then the 55 50 besides lower boiling points? You really think it’s that much faster? I’ve been wanting to snag one of your SPDs to try but haven’t had time to get down there
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You can underload and overload this system. It doesn’t matter. It’s a different type of opperating charachter when running. It’s what’s considered a mean free path - you can load into a 22l 3l or even 16l. I’m sure it depends on water content really. You can run these extreemely efficient if the vacuum is opperating at peak level.
Don’t get me wrong any Shmoe can set this up with with a basic and undercut vacuum array. What will essentially happen is you will be a percentage less efficient when targeting a boiling point while collecting what you want and disregarding what you don’t want. It is a swinging scale but it works either way. The better the vacuum, the lower the temp and narrower band of selection you generally get so deeper vac and more controll will make it opperate like a rocket ship.
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Damn son, I’m intrigued.
What kind of pricing are we looking at for the various sizes? I’m assuming you pair these with the new mantle.
The intriguing part is the main flask doesn’t change in price, the condensing section costs less than two heads and just the standard trap costs ontop of the coil condenser Wich is about 1000 dollars. I’m not exactly sure since I’m not st the shop but it’s only a bit more than a standard short path of it’s size compared to what it can do. It’s too cool, you can’t see it but there’s some action in the core of the condenser that makes it very performance based.
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