Why are the classifieds full of used ethanol labs for sale?

I’ve been noticing a lot of used centrifuges, rotovaps, wiped films, etc for sale lately. Especially centrifuges…

Is this a result of CBD/hemp market “crash”? Or are people scaling up or into new tech I’m not aware of?

3 Likes

i think its alot cheaper than previous generations of extraction methods and seems to be something alot of people have found healthy margins on considering the cost to import and bring to market. these people started doing this just before the crash so they expected people to buy em like crazy it seems

1 Like

Sorry, I meant to say USED equipment. Corrected.

oh lol people realized they cant find many retailers that need as much as they are trying to move for the farmers whose crop they were to process. now the bails sit and rot and extractors recoup their investment unless you have retailers or are a retailer.

2 Likes

It because everyones realizing 2020 will be the year of the herbal hydrocarbons lol or in other words bulk CRC hemp production . Everyone thought it was harder and then shit changed . Re-proofing solvent IMO is the biggest problem with ethanol . Hydrocarbons are becoming the easier option to scale with the new types of pumps coming out and insane passive recovery rates ect . Its just more affordable and makes the most sense in the long run . Live resin hemp terps , CRC crude , and other new products just make more sense in the rapidly changing and growing market . Also people took out loans for farming and processing equipment and the market crashed so everyones trying to get back investment

29 Likes

@Saucyslabz would you please provide an example of each type of new pump and recovery rate you speak of? Much appreciated!

1 Like

I noticed this also. Mainly with centrifuges. My thought was people ordered the centrifuges before doing research on the company and come to find out they bought some less than adequate equipment.

3 Likes

People upgrading?

1 Like

This isn’t true at all. It’s not because ethanol labs are switching to BHO or BHO labs Arnt going under as much. It’s because 90% of cbd labs run ethanol because it’s blatantly obvious that it’s the most cost effective method to scale the fastest.

Therefore it’s just basic numbers that if 100 labs went out of business 5 of them would be BHO and 45 of them would be ethanol. Therefore you almost never seen BHO equipment for sale.

Secondly ethanol labs are extremely scalable. So I can drop half the equipment in my lab on here to sell it to scale up. Hence most of the equipment you see for sale is small shit. If you see super big stuff for sale then you can begin to say markets crashing possibly

13 Likes

Also people make horrible choices, and a month or 2 months in, people realize well shit this centrifuge sucks let me get a different one

12 Likes

Home (old) - Corken this is the future of recovery for LPG and hydrocarbons . The recovery rate can be whatever you want / need go look at the options available for the oil and gas industries . They all ready have an option at extractor depot https://xtractordepot.com/products/corken-t-91 . Butane / propane is way cheaper per gal than ethonal the equipment is more affordable . Most labs require full C1D1 environments for ethanol now too so you mine as well just go hydrocarbon . It just makes way more sense

6 Likes

One theory I have is that ethanol is harder to run continuous because of the batch nature on centrifugal extraction. So as they scale they see their labor costs going up. Another theory is that you need more throughput to compete with the bigger guys and with the existing smaller equipment that means more and more labor.

3 Likes

@Siosis ethanol used to be more scalable the cost of ethanol and the process of reproofing is biggest downfall imo . This is what makes pentane , butane , propane , hexane , or heptane more easy to scale . I’m just a hydrocarbon type of guy. I just think this will be the future over ethonal we are not quite fully there yet but were close . You can just get butane or propane so much cheaper and the equipment really isn’t that pricy look at the big oil industry already … go look at corkens website . The FFE style closed loops are fucking killing the game right now. Im not the best guy for this argument against ethanol but the facts are clear and the startup cost is cheaper because you have to build C1D1 for the most part now and you need less equipment for hydrocarbons .

1 Like

Those are the shit, they haul ass

1 Like

@Roguelab @Apothecary36 @AppalachianExtractor @Concentrated_humbold @Killa12345 , @GandalfTheGreen and anyone else on the hydrocarbon team have anything else they can chime in to help out .

3 Likes

I think hydrocarbon extraction will always have its place but for mass scale i think ethanol will always rain supreme. That said there is definitely a market for non ethanol extracts.

The c1D1 argument alone has you starting 100-150k if not more in the hole before we even get to machinery. Reproofing is easy, the cost of ethanol is pretty much the main and only argument.

Safety would be my next major argument. I could have my 12 year old sister run our ethanol lab and not be to worried about her blowing us up lol.

Fire marshals hate hydrocarbons, don’t really mind ethanol.

There’s a lot of different parts to the argument totally irellevant to the machinery cost for sure

4 Likes

If your talking 10,000+ pounds a day I’d wager every lab at that scale or larger are running ethanol. 100% of them

9 Likes

I see where you are coming from and i agree that currently the big producers and huge labs all run ethanol and its easier with fire marshals and safety ect . But as things continue to grow and change i think that hydrocarbons are going to be a very viable option with CRC , hemp terps , and affordability and production becoming more scalable . Think of it like this the big new thing is CRC to clean up dirty ethonal crude for distillation . So if you can scale hydrocarbons and cut out the cost of ethanol and go straight closed loop to distillate that cuts cost and increases production by cutting out the step of ethanol . I guess the biggest thing is product trying to be produced . Imagine CRC straight to isolate

2 Likes

I started 10 years back with bho great product but the recovery and filling the tube was cumbersome
Little did I know corken and blackmer where already there
Then moved to hexane it was cheap and good enough for distillate
Then the vape crisis started and I had a beter look at bho again CRC made more options possible and so do the recovery units mentioned
I think that butane is a real option for large scale operations
IF you may have enough solvent on the ground
Seriously @greenmachine is getting 96 cfm recovery unit
Liquid ring compressors can 5x that
So there is barely a limit
But this is for THC products for cbd and large biomass numbers I think hexane or heptane will be the future
As prices go down certain losses will be accepted easier if the proces is cheaper than the loss
Decanter centrifuges for solvent recovery and other centrifugal methods can and probably will be inplemented
Or membrane technology making
The process of cryo obsolete
Afraid the cbd market will be controles and run by a few thou
Maybe 100 large processors but not many more
That’s the great thing of THC those products are crafts that change every so often deu to consumer demand

8 Likes