What sort of clean in place process are you running on your multi column butane rigs?
I come from the nuclear/steam plant world where everything is immaculately cleaned prior to assembly. That practice went out the window when I added 4 columns, multiple CRCs, a big ol collection vessel etc etc.
I now need to be able to clean in place. Running warm butane through the whole system into the collection, recover some solvent, and then depending on what was collected…literally pouring the last bit of solvent out of the spout through a hose outdoors…or continuing to recover and cleaning the collection.
This is some industrial process shit that I don’t have experience with. How should I proceed in the cleanest and most safe way?
I clean all the steel with ethanol. I try to rinse the lines out with clean solvent as often as possible, along with running solvent (butane) through the whole system. But I like to disassemble, spray it out, and wipe everything down.
You can use vacuum and nitrogen pressure to move ethanol around if you don’t have a pump. I also like to create pressure zones for agitation, given that I don’t have a mixer on 250 psi vessels (example - steady stream of nitrogen enters through the bottom drain spout of a vessel that has ethanol in it, while vacuum suction is provided at the head of the vessel). Let it agitate like this until oil in the vessel is dissolved. You can also reflux solvent in a closed vessel to wet those “hard to reach” spots.
So…I clean the material columns by hand with alcohol…every time before loading. My CRC vessels get cleaned with alcohol by hand on occasion but not often. My collection is a 12x24 and reinstalling the 12" jacketed base by myself is a motherfucker…so it gets a reflux clean and occasionally broken open for a full clean. Problem is I’ve got multiple manifolds on the wall that need to be flushed on occasion I’m sure.
I’m thinking a flush with warm butane through the system wouldn’t hurt…it just seems time consuming. I may put a filter to catch particulate before the collection as a sort of clean out.
Sinistered disk prior to crc column, if you have a by pass then by pass, if needed to clean crc down as well then run warm tane through it as well with paper filter on crc to catch particulate, but running warm tane through is a great idea anyways as you’ll be cleaning yourself solvent & of course prepping tanks.
On occasion at least 3-4 times a week disassemble & wipe down clean all stainless with etoh no iso as you don’t want to leave a additional residual & most folks are getting iso from stores not lab supplies.( not sure what y’all may get.)
Make sure to re-tape seals as often as you remove a nut. It seems to make seal cleaning easier with coconut oil as well. I suggest liquid oil or keeping a warmer for the oil so it’s easier to work with & doesn’t solidify making work harder.
Just inject each column when you do your distills, and ‘clean’ them in the process. Cleaning and upkeep of your machine is a time suck and a pain in the ass. Powder changes, filter cleaning etc. Sucks, but it’s part of it.
empty run with warm tane reflux clean material column that has a filter plate on the bottom to catch what it collects from inside the column. reflux clean evaporator. and pour off last bit of butane . sintered disc connected to hemi reducer at bottom connected to a 1/2" line. I’ll fill the line and reducer with tech grade iso and let soak then hook back up to evaporator and nitro assist through evaporator to force iso through bottom of sintered disc to clean it out.
Put the thing together without the C.R.C or any filtration and run it with warm solvent 1-2 times, take off the platter off the bottom and clean that out after you have recovered al your gas. All the trash will go to the bottom platter.
Doesn’t take much of a temperature gradient to achieve reflux either.
Adding a little ethanol to my shatter platter after pour (once upon a time) while it was still warm, and sealing the collection back up overnight would reflux gently and leave nice clean walls by morning.
I do know the trick. Unfortunately, the Chinese welders got a little excessive with the heat and the flanges are a little warped on my unit. Makes the vacuum trick less fruitful
Do you have a 12" gasket with a lip around the outside? Those help out alot with keeping everything in place.
You could do this:
followed by this:
Basically do a cip with your extraction solvent, and a small amount of alcohol in the bottom platter. Recover most of your gas then pour out the nastys.
You may want to flush with more alcohol through a top port, and blow dry with air or n2.