Am i missing something here? Supercritical refers to the method of co2 extraction but has nothing to do with winterization. (the question was originally about winterization). Is this guy just trolling?
Maybe he’s referring to the heat and pressure of supercritical co2 extraction causing degredation of terpenes
Super critical does not kill terps. Using ridiculous temperatures does though. If selective and careful pressures and temperatures are used the terps are fine, they will just have more waxes and cannabinoids mixed in that could require post processing if isolate terpenes are needed.
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you can use CO2 at either super or sub-critical temps/pressures. if you use super-critical CO2 (by heating), you can potentially degrade some of your terpenes. if you go super-critical, you also pick up fats and waxes, so you need to winterize. So no trolling…and relevant to winterization of CO2 oil.
Seems supercritical temps are to be avoided due to loss of terps and adding the winterization processes from distillate. As a business, not sure what advantages but sure seems like plenty of downsides of going supercritical. Also, don’t most packagers add terps to crude before loading carts?
Winterizing will def hurt terps, as much as ethanol recovery would if that’s how you are winterizing.
Ever tried a separatory funnel with the hydrosol or rotovape the crude?
We are trying to recover some terpenes from supercritical extraction pre-winterization.
Sub-critical does not appear to be that feasible of a option. System is automated.
Tried liquid soaks of extraction column with 800-1000 PSI and about 65F, nothing.
Having multiple collection vessels set at different pressures and temperatures is key for using supercritical CO2 to grab terps. You can separate waxes and terpenes pretty easily that way.
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If the hydrosol you are referring to the milky water that you can pull from the plant material and collect with the crude extract, I’ve messed around with is quite a bit. It tests as 0.0% terpenes at the labs, and it smells like roses, lemon, or cut grass to me. A seporatory funnel works well to separate any actual terpenes that may have mixed in during collection, you might get a couple milliliters if the collection was violent and there is agitation mixing the terpenes into an emulsion with the hydrosol.
I’ve rotovaped gallons of hydrosol just to see what kind of solids I could collect, and disappointingly the yield was microscopic and could not be recovered from the final 2L flask. White semi-amorphous globs about the size of pin heads collected around the glass.
Use of a separatory funnel for the actual terpenes is invaluable if not essential though. You are on the right track getting the terps out before winterization. Mixing in solvent complicates things especially when you are trying to make a solvent free essential oil. Winterization is crucial for making quality cannabinoids, but it’s the bane of distilling premium cannabis terpene fractions.
I’ve gotten my best lab numbers from sub-critical for sure, but I’ve always gone back to super critical for speed and just did post-processing. At the time the bosses we’re not up for doing more research and just wanted to “go fast, clean up later” My response “Aye aye captain” Making terps from 4000 psi/99 C crude extract was hard mode, but its not impossible 
Very thought out response. Thank you for replying.
I have over 20,000 hours on SCFE machines but no operation was conducive to new R&D especially for sub-critical. Now I have the opportunity to play in the sub-critical range although my pumps are hating me for it.
Have had some pretty good success keeping the system in the 65-75 bar range and 20-26C range.