@anon64373531
It is not a liquid extraction. That would be the case for hydrodistilliation.
In Steam distillation dry steam is used.
In gases with low pressure the polar properties of the molecules do not really have an influence on liquids evapourating as the vapor molecules of this liquid have a lot of space so gases are easily mixable (I did not read of a immiscible pair of gases yet and they do not have surface tension also because of the space between particles). Hydrogen bonds between the water molecules are unstable, because the electron shifts only occure between molecule pairs or even triples but not in chainslike in fluid water.
Mixing liquids involves dissolving them in each other, mixed gases do not much behave like solutions.
a true, superheated dry steam, even coming out of a safety valve, is invisible–thus, potentially deadly. that’s why people who work in processes using true dry steam vapor tend to check for leaks with the handle of a broom instead of their hand
I have an autoclave from china.
They just drilled holes in the lid put a short piece of threaded pipe, two seales and nuts to attach a manometer and releas and safety valve.
This pressure reducing regulator and the pipe back to the pressure vessel should be kept hot and be positioned in a way that no running droplets can not flow into the valve or form after it as his would cause fluctuations in the steam velocity and change pressure in the extraction chamber, causing the pressure reducing regulator and the vacuum controller to react. In a bad scenario this could lead to oscillating pressure and/or condenser failure.
I totally forgot to mention the cold trap in the vacuum line.
I am also not quite shure how cold it should be for terps at 200 mbar. any suggestions?
could this also be approximated this with a nomograph?
This is one of my ideas how a process for steam distilling small molecules from granular solids could work. This might work for distilling cannabinoids, too.
I post this so you can give me feedback on it and to keep me save from companies of several industries that would be possibly interested in having a patent on it or a hole in my head.
It consists of a steam generator, overheater made from a Dimroth cooler with a heating filament and sand in the thin tube, a rotating vessel which contains the material that is to be fractionated that is heated by microwave and surrounded by hot air and an ejector pump which is driven with ice cold water for minimum pressure that operates as a condenser followed by an adsorption column. The two immiscible lquids from the ejector are separated by adsorption or coalescence and maybe the aqueous phase could be recirculated to the cooling bath of the water for the ejector or to the boiler.
At low pressure only little amounts of water need to evaporated for a big volume of steam.
The steam in the rotating vessel is held at constant temperature from the inlet to the outlet by microwave which provides for the enthalpy of evaporation.
In the condenser all vapors are cocondensed.
The process might be time consuming but due to the low temperature at which it takes place thermolabile componends can be obtained.
Feel free to build and use it.
If you do it faster than I can please let me know.
If you have suggestions for improvement please also let me know.
This is for ones who went too far and the ones who got scared.
This is for saving a lot of energy.
This is for obtaining the unfound.
I forgot the introduction of my project:
In may I brought myself to ask a professor from the fields of process optimisation, green chemistry and analytics, who has also been working in the parfume industry before, if I can start a development project for the process from the scatch.
For the ease of work he told me to use hop instead of cannabis and aiming to distil Xanthohumol which is a promising cancer medicine and precoursor to phytoestrogenes and to keep it simple stupid.
When all parts arrived I will try building this benchtop apparatus and put some PIDs instead of thermostats.
I was also told that in steam distillation the water molecules adsorb on the surface of the liquid organic phase attacking the liquid molecules from the side. (I imagine them forming a layer or clusters of maybe one or a few molecules thickness)
Still I consider this a “solventless” in the case of using water because immiscibility of the liquid phases and a mixture of gases being not a solution (which is characterised by interaction forces of molecules).
Water could facilitate evaporation of moleculs with low volatility, because of hydrogen bonds interacting with the polar moieties.
(I imagine clusters of symmetrically arranged water molecules like hexagons pulling on the surface of the oil propelling tiny droplets of it to the gasphase when the clusters boil off spontaneously and the surface tension of these droplets makes them evaporate faster supersaturating the surrounding steam.)
There might be some issue with cocondensation(condensation of vapors forming immiscible liquids) though because these liquids would be mixed with the oil/resin.
Pentane might be purged but then it is not a “solventless” anymore.
Pentane might also be usefull as a collection liquid in steamdistillation preventing the condensed organic phase from adsorbing to the walls or coalescing matrix.
For the next experiment I just want to adsorb the organic phase to glas beads. after the run I would bring them into solution for analysis in gc-ms(other ideas appreciated because of lack in analytics expierence).
In a process for production I consider using a centrifuge or a electrostatic coalescer for liquids.
I really hope that my openness will encourage you to try a more colaborative way of discussing this kind of technology because I think some of you are missing the bigger picture of it.
It could have potential in many other industries (food inustry, production of pharmacteucals, pharmacognosis, analytics, petrochemistry, parfumes…the list goes on)
We must work on this more efficiently to save a lot of energy.
Okay I’ll just spill the beans for you guys. Take a 26 gal milk can style moonshine vessel and pipe your steam to a biomass column. I’ve had the most beautiful smelling cbd oil pour out my shotgun condenser and get stuck on a 90 degree fitting. Consistency is likely thin pancake syrup and smelled like wild roses and lavender. I had about 5g from some hemp. Was like 1 percent or less and I was making hydrosols. I’ve had some crazy shit come out of some hemp. Oodles of sulphur on some. I was about to try running some higher yielding product but just been busy, ya know. The ancients did it years ago. Stop overthinking it. It still works. A copper alembic gives the best hydrosols IMO. But for oil I would use a stainless rig and Downpipe the biomass chamber. The steam pushes it right out. Like oil and sand. No need to hit those distillation temps. Steam still pushes it out:)
No wisdom. The idea sound great. From what I know of essential oils, steam is used for extraction. Since steam is a constant temp it only extracts the terpenes that have a boiling point at the same temp. So, In theory, if you can heat up the steam under pressure to a temperature that matches various cannabinoids boiling points, could you extract the cannabinoids with this method?
